Six Arrested Following 12 Million Euro Armed Raid on Gold Processing Laboratory in the French Republic

A team of six suspects carrying assault rifles and handguns used explosive devices to breach the security of a gold refining laboratory located in the city of Lyon, causing light wounds to five employees during what appears to be the newest significant daylight theft to affect France.

The daring raid took place on Thursday late morning, with officers quickly arresting the alleged criminals and securing the stolen items valued at approximately 12 million euros (£10.5 million), according to officials.

Five employees of Laboratoires Pourquery sustained minor injuries as a result of the detonation, and three employees required hospital checks for examination, officials confirmed. Twenty-eight employees were at the location when the thieves struck.

The suspects, considered experienced criminals, were arrested a brief time later in the neighboring community of the town of Vénissieux, a source close to the investigation stated.

A female participant who took part in the robbery was also apprehended, officers confirmed.

“Six individuals who employed explosive devices in a raid against a metals processing plant in Lyon were apprehended red-handed,” the French interior minister stated online, lauding police for their “quick action, authority and management”.

High-caliber firearms, handguns and detonation devices were recovered as well.

The heist took place as authorities on the same day arrested five more suspects, featuring a main perpetrator, in regarding this month's brazen raid on the Louvre museum.

Dozens of investigators have been hunting four thieves who employed a truck equipped with a moving lift and cutting equipment to break into an upper-level exhibition space at the museum on 19 October, making off with jewelry valued at approximately 88 million euros.

In a different significant robbery, robbers the previous month broke into the Parisian museum of natural history, making off with gold samples worth over $1 million. A 24-year-old Chinese woman was taken into custody recently in Barcelona in regarding the theft, according to legal authorities.

The sequence of heists has sparked worry in France regarding insufficient protection at cultural venues and other facilities containing precious artifacts.