The ingredients of the case are: a course group of the mafia china, a castle that is Unesco world heritage for its history and its treasures, and five offenders spaniards whose records add up to more than 120 arrests. Last December 28th, the French police arrested these spaniards and a sixth individual of chinese nationality. So you have uncovered the peculiar details of frustrated assault in the museum of chinese art of the castle of Fontainebleau. This royal palace is located to 62 km of Paris, was home to 34 kings and two emperors, between centuries XII and XIX. Some of the pieces of the collection of chinese art treasured by the empress Eugenia de Montijo, the Spanish wife of Napoleon III, these were precisely the goal of the coup frustrated.

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Five spaniards arrested in France for planning a robbery in the castle of Fontainebleau The alunicero king

The collaboration of police spainfrance through Europol, which included follow-up for more than a week of criminals, allowed to disrupt the that would have been the last great theft of the 2019 and that had as a main warhead to an old acquaintance of the Spanish justice: Juan María Gordillo Plaza, known as The Boy John by his stature. This famous criminal, born in the madrid neighborhood of Orcasitas in the last 33 years, he has specialized supposedly in thefts to order.

The main hypothesis of police about the new case is that it was commissioned by a group of mafia china. With three members of this band met the offender in Spanish two days before his arrest to finalize details of the assault, according to police sources. In a phone conversation held yesterday with THE COUNTRY, the commander of the French police by Jean-Luc Boyer, deputy head of the Central Office of Fight against Trafficking of Cultural Goods (OCBC) supports that the track china is “very important”. “[The Spanish detainees] are professionals in organized crime who had come to commit robbery in France, came to by objects in chinese, and in the midst of all this we stop a chinese citizen, that's why we are focusing on that track,” he adds.

Operation Bamboo

The so-called Operation Bamboo, which allowed for the detention in France of The Child John and his cronies, started in Spain. The National Police alerted by Europol to their French colleagues that a group was planning a raid on a French museum, even though the data collected do not had allowed them to find out which one. Only knew that they were going after pieces of asian art. This detail and the follow-up of the suspects —both before and after crossing separately the border aboard two vehicles on the 21st of December— made it easier for researchers to fit the pieces of the puzzle.

they Saw how the spaniards came to the establishment of a well-known chain of sports to acquire clothes of dark color, and, later, bought an axe, spikes, screwdrivers and other material commonly used in violent assaults. However, the main clue that allowed to find the goal of the band was the chosen accommodation: an establishment cheap in the town of Nemours, Hotel F1, that is only 17.5 kilometers from the castle of Fontainebleau. This monumental building cherishes close to 800 pieces of decorative art from the Far East, many of incalculable value, both from the “seizures” of the French Revolution, as the looting of the Summer Palace in Beijing by the troops of the franco-british in 1860.

In 2015 already suffered a theft: in seven minutes were subtracted 15 valuable works from its collection of the so-called museum of China.

The Boy John and his accomplices spaniards, who were traveling spread out in two vehicles —one tuition Spanish and the other Italian, pretending not to know, even if the surveillance were able to see the close relationship that existed between them: traded the car on their travels and visited the Eiffel Tower and the stadium where they play Paris Saint-Germaine. It is also close to the castle of Fontainebleau, and visited with the alleged intention of studying the devices of video surveillance and the position of the security guards, in addition to take note of the works of art chinese exposed that allegedly had to steal. Then always returned to the hotel de Nemours, become, according to the police sources consulted, “in your headquarters” for the assault.

Specify details

In fact, two spaniards remained there on the 26th of December a meeting with three asian supposedly to finalize details of the coup. One of these last, arrested later, was the alleged link between the executors of the robbery and the promoters of the same. This chinese citizen was charged to pay with your credit card, the stay in the hotel of the band of The Boy John, as the tickets to enter the museum, which were later located in a pocket of the clothing that he wore one of the Spanish prisoners. Also been located in their mobile phone photographs of the works of art that had been commissioned to steal. “In 2015, the museum was robbed and they stole objects chinese. The research makes us think that they wanted to steal objects only chinese”, stresses Jean-Luc Boyer, deputy head of the OCBC.

The arrests came finally in the early hours of 28 December, the day chosen to steal, only 48 hours after the meeting with the alleged members of the mafia chinese in the hotel. Close to one in the morning two persons were arrested in Spanish. Shortly after, he was arrested by the chinese citizen that he had paid the expenses of the group. And at six in the morning they were finally captured the last three spaniards in the group.

When they were interrogated by the French police, all denied that they were preparing an assault, and insisted that they were in France for tourism. A strategy of defense, the denial, The Child John always uses in Spain, where it is presented as a humble electrician freelance working 10 hours a day and who knows nothing about sophisticated techniques to steal high-end vehicles. Despite not recognizing the facts, all remanded in prison and have been accused of “participation in criminal association with a view to preparing a crime”, as well as by “theft and receiving stolen property in organized band”, according to judicial sources in france.

The research tries to specify what was the fate of the objects that are going to steal. “Everything in the museum is unsaleable in the market. The objects are catalogued and known all over the world. It is impossible to negotiate with that, unless it is a theft ordered by a person or whatever”, concludes Jean-Luc Boyer.

Date Of Update: 10 January 2020, 06:00