Six Arrested After €12M Heist on Precious Metals Facility in France

A team of six suspects carrying assault rifles and handguns used explosive devices to break into a gold refining laboratory located in the city of Lyon, slightly injuring five staff members during what appears to be the most recent prominent broad daylight robbery to hit the nation.

The daring raid was carried out on Thursday afternoon, with officers rapidly detaining the alleged criminals and securing the stolen items assessed at around €12M (£10.5M), officials reported.

Five workers of the precious metals facility received light wounds from the blast, and three of them required hospital checks for assessment, the regional prefecture announced. Twenty-eight employees were present on-site when the robbers attacked.

The individuals, thought to be experienced criminals, were detained shortly after the incident in the adjacent municipality of Vénissieux, authorities revealed.

A female accomplice who took part in the raid was also apprehended, officers confirmed.

“Six people who used detonations in a raid against a precious metals company in Lyon were arrested at the scene,” the French interior minister stated online, lauding police for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

Assault rifles, handguns and explosives were also confiscated.

The heist took place as law enforcement in France on that Thursday apprehended five additional individuals, including a primary suspect, in regarding the recent audacious Louvre museum robbery.

Dozens of investigators have been hunting four robbers who employed a truck featuring an elevating platform and cutting tools to breach a first-floor gallery at the museum on the nineteenth of October, escaping with precious items estimated to be worth €88 million.

In another notable incident, burglars recently broke into the French capital's Natural History Museum, taking gold specimens worth over $1 million. A 24-year-old Chinese woman was arrested earlier this month in Barcelona, Spain in regarding the theft, prosecutors stated.

The sequence of heists has generated apprehension in the nation regarding lax security at museums and other institutions housing valuable items.