SHARE
COPY LINK

PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Two computers stolen from French Olympics’ organiser in Lille

Two computers belonging to "a manager responsible for the planning of the Lille Olympic site" were stolen from a car parked in the city, the prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.

Lille central police station.
Lille central police station. Two computers belonging to a manager responsible for the planning of the Lille Olympic site were stolen from a car parked in the city on Monday. AFP / DENIS CHARLET

However, the spokesperson did not specify the nature of the data linked to the Olympic Games that they contained.

“The complaint from a manager responsible for the planning of the Lille Olympic site was received on the evening of April 29 regarding the theft of two laptops and a badge which were in the organiser’s vehicle, which was parked in front of their home,” said Lille prosecutor Carole Etienne.

“Investigations are underway” to identify the suspect and determine “the exact nature of the data that these computers contained in connection with the 2024 Olympics,” she added.

According to a police source, one of the stolen computers was likely to contain “security plans” for the infrastructure of the Olympic village of Villeneuve-d’Ascq in Lille.

The theft occurred Monday at around 6:30 pm, according to this source, who said that access to files hosted on the network and the cloud was blocked by the Paris 2024 IT department.

“In accordance with Paris 2024 procedures, all data recorded on Paris 2024 computer equipment is encrypted and protected by passwords, and as soon as the theft was reported, the computer was locked remotely,”  a spokesperson from the Olympics’ Organising Committee (Cojo) said.

“The security of computer equipment is one of the priorities of Paris 2024, which has taken all risks into account in order to deal with any incident,” the Committee said.

The stolen badge was “an identification badge which does not allow any door to be opened” and “the computer was turned off”, a second police source told AFP.

At the end of February, a bag belonging to an engineer from the City of Paris and containing a computer and two USB sticks where notes relating to the Paris Olympic Games were stored was stolen from a train at Gare du Nord.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

CRIME

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

French police have tracked three suspects in last week's defacement of the Paris Holocaust memorial across the border into Belgium, prosecutors said.

Suspects in Paris Holocaust memorial defacement fled abroad: prosecutors

The suspects were caught on security footage as they moved through Paris before “departing for Belgium from the Bercy bus station” in southeast Paris, prosecutors said.

Investigators added that the suspects’ “reservations had been made from Bulgaria”.

An investigation was launched after the memorial was vandalised with anti-Semitic image on the anniversary of the first major round-up of French Jews under the Nazis in 1941.

On May 14, red hands were found daubed on the Wall of the Righteous at the Paris Holocaust memorial, which lists 3,900 people honoured for saving Jews during the Nazi occupation of France in World War Two.

Prosecutors are investigating damage to a protected historical building for national, ethnic, racial or religious motives.

Similar tags were found elsewhere in the Marais district of central Paris, historically a centre of French Jewish life.

The hands echoed imagery used earlier this month by students demonstrating for a ceasefire in Israel’s campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Their discovery prompted a new wave of outrage over anti-Semitism.

“The Wall of the Righteous at the Shoah (Holocaust) Memorial was vandalised overnight,” Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement, calling it an “unspeakable act”.

It was “despicable” to target the Holocaust Memorial, Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) wrote on X, formerly Twitter, calling the act a, “hateful rallying cry against Jews”.

French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the act as one of “odious anti-Semitism”.

The vandalism “damages the memory” both of those who saved Jews in the Holocaust and the victims, he wrote on X.

“The (French) Republic, as always, will remain steadfast in the face of odious anti-Semitism,” he added.

Around 10 other spots, including schools and nurseries, around the historic Marais district home to many Jews were similarly tagged, central Paris district mayor Ariel Weil told AFP.

France has the largest Jewish population of any country outside Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

The country has been on high alert for anti-Semitic acts since Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel and the state’s campaign of reprisals in Gaza in the months since.

In February, a French source told AFP that Paris’s internal security service believed Russia’s FSB security service was behind an October graffiti campaign tagging stars of David on Paris buildings.

A Moldovan couple was arrested in the case.

SHOW COMMENTS