Six men have been arrested in and around Paris suspected of involvement in stealing gold bars worth about 1.6 million euros (£1.3 million) from an Air France plane flying to Zurich, reports The Telegraph.
Searches are also under way to recover the ingots, stolen from the plane just before it left Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport on September 19.
The ingots, weighing around 100 pounds, were placed inside the plane by employees of the US security firm Brink's. An airport source said the robbers "probably made use of airport accomplices".
The theft comes as suspicions mount that Air France staff were complicit in a recent 200 million-euro (£168 million) cocaine smuggling operation.
Brink's, which regularly transports gold to Swiss banks as funds transfers, had placed nine suitcases, containing roughly 300 kilos of gold ingots, on the flight from Paris last Thursday.
On arrival in Zurich, two of the cases were missing, containing a total of 97 pounds (44kg).
Brink's has denied any responsibility over the missing gold bars, saying "it was not in charge of the transport and the packages were not under its responsibility when they disappeared".
The company added that its task "was limited to ensure the safety of the consignment during its transit at Charles de Gaulle," a mission that Brink's claimed it carried out "perfectly well".
Read more of this report from The Telegraph.