Six Arrested After €12 Million Robbery on Gold Refining Lab in France

A team of six suspects equipped with assault rifles and handguns detonated charges to force entry into a gold refining laboratory located in Lyon, causing light wounds to five employees during what appears to be the most recent prominent broad daylight robbery to occur in France.

The daring raid was carried out on the afternoon of Thursday, with officers quickly arresting the suspected perpetrators and securing the stolen items valued at approximately 12 million euros (£10.5M), officials reported.

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

Those arrested, believed to be experienced criminals, were detained soon afterwards in the adjacent municipality of Vénissieux, France, a source close to the investigation stated.

A woman involved who took part in the heist was also apprehended, according to law enforcement.

“Six people who used detonations in an attack on a metals processing plant in the Lyon area were caught in the act,” the nation's interior minister announced via X, lauding police for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

Military-style weapons, pistols and explosive materials were likewise seized.

The heist took place as French police on the same day apprehended five additional individuals, including a primary suspect, in connection with the bold raid on the Louvre museum.

Dozens of investigators have been hunting four robbers who employed a truck with a hydraulic lift and cutting gear to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the renowned museum on the nineteenth of October, making off with jewelry valued at approximately €88 million.

In a different significant robbery, thieves last month forced their way into the Parisian museum of natural history, taking gold specimens worth over $1 million. A young Chinese female was apprehended in the current month in the city of Barcelona in relation to the burglary, officials confirmed.

This series of robberies has raised concerns in the nation regarding lax security at museums and other institutions holding high-value objects.