Six Individuals Detained After €12M Armed Raid on Gold Refining Lab in the French Republic

Six armed perpetrators carrying assault rifles and handguns detonated charges to break into a gold treatment facility located in Lyon, resulting in minor injuries to five workers during described as the newest significant broad daylight robbery to hit the country.

The bold operation occurred on Thursday afternoon, with law enforcement authorities rapidly detaining the individuals believed responsible and retrieving the loot estimated to be worth €12M (£10.5M), according to officials.

Five workers of Laboratoires Pourquery received light wounds from the blast, and three individuals required hospital checks for evaluation, the regional prefecture announced. Twenty-eight employees were inside the facility when the thieves struck.

The individuals, thought to be career criminals, were arrested shortly after the incident in the adjacent municipality of Vénissieux, France, a source close to the investigation stated.

A female accomplice who took part in the heist was likewise arrested, a police source indicated.

“Six individuals who used detonations in a raid against a gold refining facility in Lyon, France were apprehended red-handed,” France's security official announced via X, praising officers for their “firmness, rapid response and command”.

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

The heist took place as law enforcement in France on the same day arrested five more suspects, including a primary suspect, in regarding the recent audacious raid on the Louvre museum.

Dozens of investigators have been searching for four thieves who employed a truck featuring an elevating platform and cutting equipment to access a gallery on the first floor at the prestigious institution on the nineteenth of October, escaping with jewelry valued at approximately €88 million.

In a separate high-profile case, burglars recently forced their way into the Natural History Museum in Paris, taking gold specimens worth over $1 million. A young Chinese female was apprehended in the current month in Barcelona, Spain in regarding the theft, prosecutors stated.

The string of thefts has sparked worry in the nation regarding lax security at museums and other institutions housing valuable items.