Six Suspects Apprehended Following 12 Million Euro Armed Raid on Gold Processing Laboratory in the French Republic

Six armed perpetrators equipped with military-grade weapons employed explosives to force entry into a gold treatment facility located in the city of Lyon, slightly injuring five workers during described as the most recent prominent broad daylight robbery to hit France.

The audacious robbery was carried out on Thursday late morning, with police forces rapidly detaining the alleged criminals and retrieving the loot valued at approximately €12M (£10.5M), officials reported.

Five employees of Laboratoires Pourquery were slightly hurt as a result of the detonation, and three individuals were transported to hospital for evaluation, the regional prefecture announced. A total of twenty-eight staff were present on-site when the thieves struck.

The suspects, believed to be seasoned offenders, were detained soon afterwards in the nearby town of Vénissieux, authorities revealed.

A woman involved involved in the heist was also apprehended, a police source indicated.

“Six individuals who employed explosive devices in an attack on a metals processing plant in Lyon were apprehended red-handed,” the French interior minister stated online, praising officers for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

Assault rifles, handguns and explosives were likewise seized.

The heist took place as law enforcement in France on that Thursday detained five further people, featuring a main perpetrator, in relation to the recent audacious Louvre museum robbery.

Dozens of investigators have been hunting four thieves who used a vehicle featuring an elevating platform and cutting equipment to access a gallery on the first floor at the prestigious institution on 19 October, making off with jewelry valued at approximately 88 million euros.

In a different significant robbery, robbers the previous month forced their way into the Parisian museum of natural history, stealing gold samples estimated at exceeding $1M. A 24-year-old Chinese woman was apprehended in the current month in Barcelona, Spain in relation to the burglary, officials confirmed.

The sequence of heists has sparked worry in the country regarding lax security at cultural venues and other facilities housing valuable items.