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French cops bust gang of luxury car thieves

A two-country police operation has smashed an organised crime gang that stole high-end luxury cars in France and re-sold them for bargain-basement prices in Germany, Europe's judicial agency said Friday.

Published: 14 October 2016 16:56 CEST

French cops bust gang of luxury car thieves

Photo: AFP

French and German police raided 24 homes in the two countries on Thursday, leading to the arrest of 15 suspected gang members and the recovery of 11 luxury cars, said Eurojust, which helped to coordinate the operation.

The investigation into the theft of posh cars started in June, when police dismantled a Roma camp in northern France, the Hague-based agency said in a statement.

That probe revealed links to two other cases lodged at the district court in Le Havre and it was discovered “the cars were stolen in France and sold to customers in Germany for low prices.”

Seventeen cases were also under scrutiny by organised crime investigators in Lille, Eurojust said.

The car gang “broke into car owners' private homes to steal their car keys,” before making off with the vehicles, forging identity papers and driving them to Germany, the agency said.

Two computers stolen from French Olympics' organiser in Lille

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.

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