According to a provisional assessment of the police, the damage would amount to around 90,000 euros. It remains for the investigators to know whether the couple was acting on their own behalf or that of an organized network.
A couple was apprehended on Friday January 7 at the service station of a Mondeville hypermarket by investigators from the Calvados Departmental Security, in the act of stealing fuel, we learned on Tuesday from the Caen prosecutor’s office. , confirming information from Actu.fr. Their arrest comes after a meticulous surveillance investigation lasting several weeks.
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Both are suspected of having stolen more than 60,000 liters of fuel from several supermarkets in Normandy in the space of two months. At the beginning of November, the managers of the Carrefour de Mondeville petrol station, located not far from Caen, had noted a discrepancy between the fuel served and the payments recorded. Some 8,000 liters of gasoline were allegedly stolen in this way.
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An investigation was opened in the process and entrusted to the police of Caen. The use of video surveillance tapes from several brands quickly revealed the couple’s little game, which not only used stolen bank cards but also “a technical device allowing you to use diesel or gasoline in very large quantities by paying only a small amount“, as Caen prosecutor Amélie Cladière explains. “However, there were not enough elements to proceed to an arrest. The people were not identifiable in the images and the license plates were fake., continues the magistrate.
License plates and equipment for fuel theft
Investigators then set up a surveillance system which led to the arrest, on January 7, of a 32-year-old man and his 29-year-old companion in Mondeville. After verification, the couple corresponded to the one spotted on CCTV images of several signs victims of identical thefts throughout Normandy but also in the Yvelines, where he is from. According to a provisional assessment of the investigators, the damage would amount to nearly 90,000 euros.
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In police custody, the man, already known to the police, quickly recognized the facts while his companion was walled in silence. During a search of their home, the investigators seized 9,600 euros in cash as well as several sets of license plates, pumps and cans for diesel.
Referred to the Caen prosecutor’s office at the end of their police custody, the two suspects were presented to an investigating judge indicted on Sunday January 9, for “organized gang fraud”. The man was placed in pre-trial detention and his companion in a detention center after requesting a delay to present an alternative to incarceration.
The investigations are continuing. For the investigators, it is in particular a question of knowing if the couple acted for their own account or that of a much more organized network.