Six Arrested After 12 Million Euro Heist on Gold Refining Lab in the French Republic

Six armed perpetrators carrying assault rifles and handguns employed explosives to breach the security of a gold treatment facility located in Lyon, causing light wounds to five employees during what appears to be the newest significant daylight theft to occur in the country.

The audacious robbery occurred on Thursday late morning, with officers rapidly detaining the alleged criminals and retrieving the loot assessed at around 12 million euros (10.5 million pounds), officials reported.

Five workers of Laboratoires Pourquery were slightly hurt due to the explosion, and three of them were transported to hospital for examination, according to regional authorities. Twenty-eight employees were present on-site when the robbers attacked.

The suspects, considered career criminals, were taken into custody a brief time later in the neighboring community of the town of Vénissieux, a source close to the investigation stated.

A female accomplice who took part in the heist was likewise arrested, according to law enforcement.

“Six suspects who employed explosive devices in an assault targeting a metals processing plant in Lyon, France were apprehended red-handed,” the French interior minister announced via X, praising officers for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

High-caliber firearms, handguns and detonation devices were likewise seized.

The robbery occurred as law enforcement in France on the same day apprehended five additional individuals, featuring a main perpetrator, in connection with this month's brazen raid on the Louvre museum.

Dozens of investigators have been searching for four perpetrators who employed a truck featuring an elevating platform and cutting equipment to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the renowned museum on 19 October, fleeing with jewelry valued at approximately €88M.

In another notable incident, thieves last month entered illegally the Parisian museum of natural history, taking gold specimens worth over $1 million. A woman from China, aged 24 was apprehended in the current month in Barcelona, Spain in regarding the theft, according to legal authorities.

The sequence of heists has sparked worry in the country regarding insufficient protection at cultural venues and other facilities containing precious artifacts.