five coffins placed in front of the Eiffel Tower, three people in police custody

Five coffins were found Saturday morning in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris as well as a banner with the inscription “French soldiers of Ukraine”, Franceinfo learned on Sunday June 2 from a police source. Three people are in police custody, adds this same source. They are two men who were preparing to take a bus towards Berlin and the driver of a van who claims to have arrived the evening before from Bulgaria.

According to the first elements of the investigation, after viewing the video surveillance images around the Eiffel Tower, the police saw a white van arrive shortly before 9 a.m. on Saturday quay Jacques Chirac and park at the corner of the quay and from Allée Jean Paulhan. Two individuals then got out of the van before placing the coffins and the banner on the sidewalk. According to investigations carried out later by the technical and scientific police, the coffins contained bags of plaster.

The driver of the van was immediately checked and taken into custody, he told the police that he had been paid 40 euros to drop off the individuals and the cargo, after arriving from Bulgaria the previous night. The two men who placed the coffins initially managed to escape before being found at the Bercy bus station, where police officers from the anti-crime brigade (BAC) of the 12th arrondissement of Paris had set up a surveillance system. These two suspects wanted to take a bus to Berlin, Germany. They were subsequently placed in police custody. Paris territorial security is responsible for the investigation.