French police on Wednesday arrested 16 youths, aged between 14 and 18, after the hold-up of a suburban train near Paris earlier in March, reports FRANCE 24.
They are suspected of having boarded the train en masse in the run-down Grigny suburb on March 16, stopping the train by setting off the alarm, and going through the carriages robbing frightened passengers systematically of their mobile phones, cash and handbags.
After the hold-up of the train, which connects the suburb to Paris, the estimated 20 youths jumped off and disappeared before the police arrived.
Police on Wednesday said that stolen items had been recovered during dawn raids at one of Grigny’s huge housing estates, and that some of the youths arrested are suspected of having taken part in two similar robberies.
“What they did was not only serious but completely stupid,” Grigny’s Communist mayor Philippe Rio told AFP. “All they will do is increase the discrimination that already exists against people from Grigny. They discredit the silent majority of residents who just want to live their lives in peace.”
“Grigny might not be Care Bears territory but it isn’t the Wild West either,” he added.
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.
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