French police on Thursday detained three grave-diggers in the latest in a series of arrests after dozens of bodies were dug up and gold teeth and jewellery stolen from them.
Police detained the men as they worked at a cemetery in Pantin in the north Paris suburbs, where last month four other men, including another three grave-diggers, were arrested.
The first two arrests came on the night of November 25, when police found 10 gold teeth on one of the suspects who were both wearing miners' headlamps and boots covered with fresh earth.
A police source said the thieves located fresh graves during the day and then returned at night to rob them.
French police were searching for gunmen after three people were killed in drug-related shootings in the Paris suburb of Sevran over the weekend.
Two men were shot dead near a cultural centre in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb, to the northeast of the French capital on Sunday evening, less than 48 hours after another fatal shooting nearby, according to authorities.
The victims of Sunday’s shooting were aged 35 and 31 and known for violence and drug trafficking, according to police sources.
One was shot in the head, with two suspects fleeing on foot, leaving the magazine of an automatic weapon and 18 spent bullet casings behind them.
The second man was hit six times.
The town of 52,000 people was on edge, mayor Stephane Blanchet told AFP, saying people were living in fear of another shooting.
“There is a huge feeling of fear, that it could start again and [that someone could be hit by] a stray bullet,” Blanchet said.
“If it had been a beautiful sunny day, there would have been more people outside,” when the latest shooting happened, he said.
In the first shooting, a 28-year-old man was killed on a nearby housing estate early on Saturday, with three others wounded.
In March, French President Emmanuel Macron announced an ‘XXL’ cleanup of drug trafficking in the southern port city of Marseille and other towns across France, including Sevran, where the drugs trade has been blamed for a spate of death and violence.
One drug dealing hotspot in Sevran was ‘eradicated’ in that operation, police said.
“We are aware that when we do that, we destabilise traffic, we create greed and sometimes there are clashes,” Paris police chief Laurent Nunez said on Sunday.
“But we will still continue,” he added.
Local La France insoumise MP Clementine Autain accused the government of abandoning some areas, and said the suburb, “did not have the police presence of other areas”.
Drug-related violence has often flared in Sevran – considered a hub of drug trafficking in France – with the then-mayor calling for UN peacekeepers to be deployed there in 2011.
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