Two suspects were arrested after a series of burglaries of safes in nursing homes in Drôme, we learned from the gendarmes on Saturday.
The two men, Romanian nationals, were arrested by the gendarmes while they attempted to burglarize an Ehpad (accommodation establishment for dependent elderly people) in Donzère (Drôme).
According to the Drôme gendarmerie, they specialized in “theft of safes, targeting jewelry and valuables left by residents in nursing homes”.
Five nursing homes burglarized since 2024
Since the start of 2024, at least five nursing homes have been burglarized, four in Drôme and one in Ardèche, according to the local daily Le Dauphiné Libération, which revealed the affair.
Several networks of safe thefts in nursing homes were recently dismantled in France.
Last September, for example, three other Romanians were each sentenced to three years in prison, accused of having scoured a dozen nursing homes in Brittany and Centre-Val de Loire.
At night, they stole safes from retirement homes previously identified on the Internet as being relatively isolated.