Six Suspects Apprehended After 12 Million Euro Armed Raid on Gold Processing Laboratory in the French Republic

A group of six individuals carrying assault rifles and handguns detonated charges to breach the security of a gold treatment facility located in Lyon, France, causing light wounds to five staff members during what appears to be the latest high-profile broad daylight robbery to occur in the country.

The daring raid took place on the afternoon of Thursday, with police forces rapidly detaining the suspected perpetrators and securing the stolen items assessed at around €12M (£10.5M), according to officials.

Five workers of Laboratoires Pourquery were slightly hurt from the blast, and three employees required hospital checks for examination, according to regional authorities. Twenty-eight workers were at the location when the robbers attacked.

The suspects, believed to be seasoned offenders, were taken into custody a brief time later in the nearby town of Vénissieux, authorities revealed.

A female participant who participated in the raid was likewise arrested, a police source indicated.

“Six people who utilized explosives in an assault targeting a gold refining facility in Lyon were caught in the act,” the nation's interior minister announced via X, commending law enforcement for their “firmness, rapid response and command”.

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

The heist took place as law enforcement in France on that Thursday detained five further people, featuring a main perpetrator, in regarding the bold raid on the Louvre museum.

Dozens of investigators have been searching for four perpetrators who utilized a lorry featuring an elevating platform and cutting gear to breach a first-floor gallery at the renowned museum on the nineteenth of October, escaping with jewelry valued at approximately €88M.

In a different significant robbery, robbers the previous month entered illegally the Parisian museum of natural history, taking gold specimens worth over $1 million. A 24-year-old Chinese woman was arrested earlier this month in Barcelona in regarding the theft, prosecutors stated.

This series of robberies has sparked worry in the country regarding insufficient protection at cultural venues and other facilities housing valuable items.