Six Individuals Detained Following €12M Heist on Gold Refining Lab in the French Republic

Six armed perpetrators equipped with assault rifles and handguns used explosive devices to break into a precious metals processing plant located in the city of Lyon, causing light wounds to five workers during described as the most recent prominent daylight theft to affect the country.

The daring raid took place on the afternoon of Thursday, with law enforcement authorities quickly arresting the alleged criminals and retrieving the loot estimated to be worth €12M (10.5 million pounds), according to officials.

Five workers of Laboratoires Pourquery sustained minor injuries from the blast, and three employees required hospital checks for assessment, officials confirmed. Twenty-eight workers were at the location when the perpetrators raided.

Those arrested, considered career criminals, were arrested shortly after the incident in the neighboring community of the town of Vénissieux, according to investigative sources.

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

“Six individuals who employed explosive devices in an assault targeting a metals processing plant in Lyon were apprehended red-handed,” the French interior minister stated online, lauding police for their “decisiveness, speed and control”.

Assault rifles, handguns and explosives were recovered as well.

The raid happened as authorities on that Thursday arrested five more suspects, including a primary suspect, in connection with the recent audacious raid on the Louvre museum.

Many investigative personnel have been hunting four robbers who utilized a lorry with a hydraulic lift and cutting tools to access a gallery on the first floor at the prestigious institution on 19 October, escaping with precious items estimated to be worth €88 million.

In a different significant robbery, robbers the previous month broke into the French capital's Natural History Museum, taking gold specimens estimated at exceeding $1M. A young Chinese female was taken into custody recently in Barcelona in relation to the burglary, prosecutors stated.

The sequence of heists has generated apprehension in the country regarding lax security at museums and various establishments containing precious artifacts.