Six Individuals Detained After €12M Robbery on Precious Metals Facility in the French Republic

A team of six suspects carrying assault rifles and handguns used explosive devices to break into a gold treatment facility located in Lyon, resulting in minor injuries to five staff members during what appears to be the most recent prominent daylight theft to affect France.

The daring raid took place on Thursday late morning, with law enforcement authorities quickly arresting the individuals believed responsible and securing the stolen items assessed at around €12M (10.5 million pounds), officials reported.

Five employees of the gold refining company were slightly hurt due to the explosion, and three individuals were transported to hospital for assessment, the regional prefecture announced. Twenty-eight employees were inside the facility when the thieves struck.

The individuals, believed to be seasoned offenders, were arrested a brief time later in the nearby town of the town of Vénissieux, a source close to the investigation stated.

A female accomplice who participated in the heist was also apprehended, officers confirmed.

“Six individuals who employed explosive devices in an assault targeting a gold refining facility in the Lyon area were arrested at the scene,” France's security official announced via X, lauding police for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

High-caliber firearms, handguns and detonation devices were also confiscated.

The robbery occurred as French police on that Thursday detained five further people, featuring a main perpetrator, in relation to the recent audacious theft at the Louvre.

Dozens of investigators have been searching for four robbers who employed a truck with a hydraulic lift and cutting gear to access a gallery on the first floor at the museum on the nineteenth of October, fleeing with jewelry valued at approximately 88 million euros.

In a different significant robbery, robbers the previous month entered illegally the French capital's Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth over $1 million. A young Chinese female was taken into custody recently in Barcelona, Spain in connection with the break-in, officials confirmed.

The sequence of heists has generated apprehension in the country regarding lax security at museums and other institutions containing precious artifacts.