It is however far from Switzerland, in Marseille, that this investigation begins. On the night of June 28 to 29, a young man, aged 20, was found dead, shot and killed in the city of Bassens, in the 15th arrondissement of Marseille. On the spot, a police officer affirms that the weapons come from Switzerland. He is not the first to talk about weapons stolen from Swiss armories. “They are found everywhere in the cities”, he slips.
On the Franco-Swiss border, in the canton of Valais, this gunsmith said he was angry with France. “We don’t have the same legislation, we have weapons of war, your thugs know it and you let them do it, he says. Semi-automatic sports rifles, such as AR-15s, Kalashnikovs, are found in Switzerland because they are leisure objects. At home in France, we mainly find hunting rifles. “
“Everything you don’t have in France and Europe can be found in Switzerland. We are sheep in the midst of a herd of wolves, there is not much we can do.”
A Swiss gunsmithto franceinfo
This gunsmith believes that the “job” upstream has not been done in France, “Now there is an armory which is no longer there and there are weapons which are free at home and all over Europe.”
The armory of which this man speaks is located in Zwingen, in the canton of Basel. Between September and November 2020, she was targeted five times by robbers from the Rhône-Alpes region. Arrested on March 9, they had stolen nearly 200 weapons, including automatic weapons. In total, this team of robbers allegedly stole more than 500 weapons from both sides of the border.
Faced with these raids, last November, Switzerland imposed on its gunsmiths to raise their level of security. Above all, it set up a task force, a sort of direct line, with the French judicial police. “Switzerland is an attractive country for all this cross-border crime that comes from France, says Anne-Florence Debois, spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Police. On the one hand, its geographical position is attractive: it is a small country, you can get there quickly and leave quickly. These are teams that have succeeded in establishing themselves both in the Swiss economic and social fabric, benefiting from drop-off points, contacts, and to set up logistics in order to carry out these sometimes quite impressive break-ins or burglaries. “
On the French side, it is Thibaut Fontaine, divisional commissioner, head of the criminal division at the judicial police of Lyon, who tracks these teams from the Rhône-Alpes. With fifteen facts and attempts for more than a year, he has seen everything from burglary to elaborate thefts of thugs disguised as fake police officers. “Switzerland has the particularity of having particularly well stocked armories, particularly in automatic weapons and not only in hunting weapons., he explains. They are less protected than certain French armories. “ According to him, “The criminals able to project themselves in Switzerland know perfectly well the border topography. They will take the small roads which are little used.”
“They carry out burglaries with stolen cars, powerful and with others, in order to gain a maximum of weapons in a minimum of time.”
Thibaut Fontaine, head of the criminal division at the Lyon judicial policeto franceinfo
“At the end of the day, the criminals can get their hands on a large quantity of weapons which is almost exclusively intended to fuel French organized crime, continues the divisional commissioner. We found weapons that came from these armories in different places, several in the Rhône-Alpes region, but also in the Marseille region of Montpellier, the Mediterranean arc. “
Another key fact: in recent months, the price of arms has jumped. Second-hand weapons from the East are starting to date, the thugs prefer the new one available through the Swiss short circuit. “The price of weapons on the black market, and in particular for quality weapons such as those stolen from Swiss armories, have increased markedly over the past ten months., assures the divisional commissioner Thibaut Fontaine.
According to the commissioner, “Handguns have also greatly increased. The weapons are brought to the market through the network of relationships of these seasoned criminals. Usually, within 48-72 hours, the lot in its entirety or divided into a few parts is resold. “
“Their logic is simple: why go to the other end of Europe to find the weapons you have at your fingertips?”
Thibaut Fontaine, head of the criminal division at the Lyon judicial policeto franceinfo
Since this summer, Switzerland has experienced a break from these attacks on armories, the result perhaps of several recent hits on the French side with 30 arrests since the start of the year. “The Lyon and Grenoble region do indeed have the specificity of bringing together criminals who are capable of projecting themselves far away on really daring blows., says Thibaut Fontaine. Today we are almost the only area in France where we still encounter this type of crime, which effectively requires us to implement very dense and sometimes complex strategies since we must make them play out on both sides of the the border.”
Today the French police are working “together” with the Swiss police. “We have joint investigation teams, with mirror investigations on both sides of the border on the same facts, it has become very fluid, assures the head of the criminal division to the judicial police of Lyon. Information passes quickly, even very quickly, between our departments. This has enabled us to obtain results with the support in particular of the central structures of the Central Office for the Fight against Organized Crime or the Swiss Federal Police. With extremely conclusive results in the fight against armed attacks to the detriment of the transport of funds. “
The fear is that these groups, now equipped with the latest generation heavy weapons, will not be deported to other activities in Switzerland, such as attacks on armored vans.