6 detained over gold theft worth EUR1.5m from Air France plane

Six persons were detained on Friday in Paris suspected of stealing gold worth EUR1.5 million. The police took in charge the alleged lawbreakers one week after the shocking incident in the Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. September 19, about 45 kg of freight disappeared from the Air France plane that was going to deliver about 300 kg of gold bars to Zurich. The loss was noticed only when the plane arrived to the endpoint. Police suspected the air carrier’s employees and airport security service officers. This is not the first scandal involving French air carriers. On the previous week, the police detained a record big cocaine consignment weighing 1.4 tons in the Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport. The illegal freight arrived in Paris in suitcases on board of an ordinary passenger plane coming from Caracas. The flight was performed by Air France. Independent experts believe that without support of accomplices from the air carrier’s employees the transportation of such a huge amount of drugs would be impossible. “The delinquents had accomplices in the Caracas airport,” Christoph Noden, a well-known French criminalist specializing in air security, noted. “There were accomplices in Paris too, since it was needed to receive the freight avoiding the common baggage carousel.”