Thieves strike crowded Lyon casino

Masked men armed with assault rifles on Sunday stole 28,800 euros in an attack on a crowded French casino, during which they fired shots at the ceiling. This follows a robbery last week, in which thieves bored through an underground wall into a LCL bank vault in Paris, held a security guard hostage and stole goods from safe deposit boxes.

Reuters

Police said it took only three minutes for the thieves to carry out their operation at Le Pharaon casino in the central city of Lyon. It is located just down the street from the headquarters of the international police agency, Interpol.

After bursting into the casino, four men used an angle grinder to break into the cashiers' area, while another man waited outside. All five fled in a black BMW.

“They moved very quickly, they were there for barely two minutes – the time it took to get into the cashiers using the angle grinder,” a police investigator said.

Two security guards suffered minor injuries.

During a separate incident last week, burglars attempted to break into a BNP Paribas bank in southern Paris by drilling a hole through an underground wall from a sewer. The attempt triggered an alarm, and the group fled.