Six Arrested After €12M Robbery on Precious Metals Facility in France

A team of six suspects carrying military-grade weapons used explosive devices to break into a gold treatment facility located in Lyon, causing light wounds to five staff members during described as the latest high-profile broad daylight robbery to affect France.

The audacious robbery occurred on the afternoon of Thursday, with law enforcement authorities swiftly apprehending the alleged criminals and recovering the stolen goods valued at approximately €12 million (10.5 million pounds), as stated by authorities.

Five employees of Laboratoires Pourquery were slightly hurt as a result of the detonation, and three of them were taken to a medical facility for evaluation, officials confirmed. Twenty-eight employees were inside the facility when the robbers attacked.

Those arrested, believed to be seasoned offenders, were taken into custody soon afterwards in the adjacent municipality of Vénissieux, authorities revealed.

A woman involved involved in the raid was also apprehended, according to law enforcement.

“Six individuals who utilized explosives in an attack on a metals processing plant in Lyon were apprehended red-handed,” the nation's interior minister declared on social media, praising officers for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

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

The robbery occurred as authorities on that Thursday apprehended five additional individuals, among them a key figure, in regarding this month's brazen theft at the Louvre.

Many investigative personnel have been searching for four robbers who employed a truck equipped with a moving lift and cutting equipment to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the prestigious institution on 19 October, fleeing with precious items estimated to be worth €88M.

In a different significant robbery, thieves last month broke into the French capital's Natural History Museum, stealing gold samples valued at more than one million dollars. A young Chinese female was apprehended in the current month in Barcelona in relation to the burglary, officials confirmed.

The sequence of heists has generated apprehension in France regarding lax security at museums and various establishments containing precious artifacts.