Six Suspects Apprehended After €12M Armed Raid on Precious Metals Facility in the French Republic

A group of six individuals using assault rifles and handguns used explosive devices to breach the security of a gold refining laboratory located in the city of Lyon, causing light wounds to five employees during what is being called the latest high-profile daylight theft to affect France.

The daring raid occurred on the afternoon of Thursday, with police forces quickly arresting the alleged criminals and retrieving the loot assessed at around 12 million euros (£10.5 million), officials reported.

Five employees of the gold refining company received light wounds from the blast, and three of them required hospital checks for examination, the regional prefecture announced. Twenty-eight employees were inside the facility when the robbers attacked.

Those arrested, considered career criminals, were arrested shortly after the incident in the neighboring community of Vénissieux, according to investigative sources.

A woman involved involved in the raid was likewise arrested, a police source indicated.

“Six people who utilized explosives in a raid against a metals processing plant in the Lyon area were apprehended red-handed,” the nation's interior minister announced via X, commending law enforcement for their “quick action, authority and management”.

High-caliber firearms, handguns and detonation devices were recovered as well.

The robbery occurred as law enforcement in France on the same day arrested five more suspects, featuring a main perpetrator, in relation to this month's brazen Louvre museum robbery.

Many investigative personnel have been searching for four perpetrators who used a vehicle featuring an elevating platform and cutting tools to breach a first-floor gallery at the museum on the nineteenth of October, making off with precious items estimated to be worth €88M.

In another notable incident, burglars recently broke into the Natural History Museum in Paris, stealing gold samples worth over $1 million. A woman from China, aged 24 was arrested earlier this month in the city of Barcelona in relation to the burglary, prosecutors stated.

The string of thefts has raised concerns in France regarding lax security at cultural venues and other facilities housing valuable items.