Six Suspects Apprehended Following €12 Million Robbery on Precious Metals Facility in France

A group of six individuals 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 is being called the latest high-profile daylight theft to hit the nation.

The bold operation was carried out on Thursday afternoon, with officers rapidly detaining the individuals believed responsible and recovering the stolen goods valued at approximately €12M (£10.5 million), according to officials.

Five workers of the precious metals facility received light wounds from the blast, and three individuals were transported to hospital for examination, the regional prefecture announced. Twenty-eight employees were at the location when the perpetrators raided.

Those arrested, considered experienced criminals, were taken into custody shortly after the incident in the adjacent municipality of the town of Vénissieux, authorities revealed.

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

“Six people who employed explosive devices in a raid against a metals processing plant in Lyon, France were apprehended red-handed,” the nation's interior minister declared on social media, commending law enforcement for their “quick action, authority and management”.

Military-style weapons, pistols and explosive materials were recovered as well.

The robbery occurred as law enforcement in France on that Thursday apprehended five additional individuals, featuring a main perpetrator, in relation to this month's brazen Louvre museum robbery.

Dozens of investigators have been hunting four perpetrators who employed a truck equipped with a moving lift and cutting gear to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the renowned museum on October 19th, making off with ornaments assessed at around €88M.

In a separate high-profile case, thieves last month entered illegally the Parisian museum of natural history, making off with gold samples estimated at exceeding $1M. A young Chinese female was apprehended in the current month in Barcelona, Spain in regarding the theft, prosecutors stated.

The sequence of heists has generated apprehension in the nation regarding insufficient protection at museums and other institutions holding high-value objects.