Sold under the hood, these clothes are worth gold.
Six men, aged 21 to 49, were arrested on Monday by investigators from the banditry suppression group (GRB) of the judicial police (PJ) of Évry (Essonne), supported by their colleagues from the research brigade and intervention (BRI) of Versailles.
They are suspected of having, since February 2023 in Coudray-Montceaux (Essonne), exploited a flaw in the resale system of the Spanish ready-to-wear giant.
These six suspects are said to have organized or participated in lucrative trafficking in Zara clothing, for which the damage amounts to nearly 1.5 million euros.
Nearly seven hundred packages diverted
It was in the spring of 2023 that the managers of this famous inexpensive textile company discovered the pot aux roses, when unsold items appeared on the Argenteuil market (Val-d'Oise).
The brand has a distribution channel for merchandise which has not found a buyer in these Ile-de-France stores.
The ready-to-wear company uses a subcontractor responsible for depositing the new collections in the store and collecting the old ones which are supposed to be deposited on a logistics platform in Coudray-Montceaux.
“These unsold goods then had to be repatriated to Spain or resold on the Internet,” adds a source close to the matter.
But, as is often the case, the company employs a subcontractor, who employs further subcontractors for this task.
And, at the end of the chain, is this team of opportunists who manage a delivery company based in Argenteuil.
“In the month of February 2023 alone, nearly seven hundred packages were missing that were diverted,” adds our source.
The investigators place these unscrupulous delivery men under surveillance and realize that they help themselves to the clothing lots with impunity.
Their movements are watched.
They live in Val-d'Oise, Seine-Saint-Denis, Yvelines and Val-de-Marne and the stolen clothes are sold on markets in the Paris region.
“The director of the company also manages a clandestine garage in Argenteuil,” specifies a source close to the matter.
Another point of sale is identified in the back room of a hairdresser in Saint-Ouen (Seine-Saint-Denis).
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Organized gang theft and receiving stolen goods
Officials note that the suspected thieves are not even hiding.
The delivery men suspected of being dishonest travel to Carré-Sénart, the shopping center of Lieusaint (Seine-et-Marne), where they take into account boxes.
“Other meetings are taking place in Orléans
(Loiret)
and it seems that another showroom has been set up near Marseille
(Bouches-du-Rhône),
but this avenue has not yet been explored” , adds another source.
To resell their products, the gang organized wholesale lot sales by raising bids with traders.
This Monday, January 22, officials seized a large quantity of goods from the homes and storage locations of the criminals.
The six men were placed in police custody in Évry for theft and concealment of organized theft.
They should be questioned until the end of the week before being brought before the Évry public prosecutor's office which will have to decide on the follow-up to be given to this case.
This is not the first time that Zara has been the subject of theft and trafficking.
In Seine-et-Marne in February 2022, a team was arrested for stealing stocks of clothing intended to be resold on markets.
And on the Plaisir side, last summer, a gang of shoplifting Stakhanovites was surprised in a shopping center by investigators from the police station.