According to a statement from the prosecutor’s office of Nancy, on 17 November the theft occurred in a medical institution which housed endoscopy equipment, “including 18 machines valued at 30,000 euros each.”
The total damage was evaluated “at nearly 1 million euros”, according to the prosecutor.
“Following exchanges of information with the Belgian and Luxembourg judicial police services”, the stolen material was located a few days later in a post office in Arlon, Belgium, “where it had been deposited in four packages” with the postal destination of Bogota, Colombia.
The exchanges “between the three judicial police services of France, Belgium and Luxembourg” have “quickly” identified the alleged perpetrators, “a criminal group of five Colombian criminals”, four men and a woman, arrested on 24 November by the Luxembourgish police in a hotel in Livange.
According to the public prosecutor, searches conducted in their rooms resulted in the seizure of bags, suitcases and clothes which were seen to be in use during the theft via security camera images.
The Luxembourgish authorities handed the suspects over to the the French justice system on 5 December, where they were indicted and placed in provisional detention as part of the judicial investigation. The Nancy prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for “theft in an organized gang and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime.”
The prosecutor of Nancy has said, “The judicial investigation will seek to understand” in particular “if other crimes of the same nature are likely to be attributed to the group.”
