Store holdup: Gunmen escape under the nose of French special forces

VILLENEUVE-LA-GARENNE:

French police on Monday were hunting armed robbers who escaped after holding up a store in a shopping mall near Paris, prompting special forces to intervene and seal off the area.

The three men, ¬ one of whom was thought to be an employee of the shop, burst into the Primark store in Villeneuve-la-Garenne early on Monday, said a police source who wished to remain anonymous.

An employee first alerted her boyfriend to the holdup at around 7:00 am when she sent him a text message saying they had been taken hostage by two armed men, another source said.

The area around the Qwartz Mall was shut down, all traffic stopped and other stores in the vicinity closed up as special forces rushed to the scene.

The mall was promptly evacuated but according to police, 18 employees had remained inside -- some were told to stay put by the gunmen and others had managed to hide on their own.

They “were evacuated around 10:30 am, one of them was unwell but no-one was injured,” police said.

But while security forces initially thought the gunmen were still inside the mall, they realised after searching the premises that the men had escaped.

The suspects “appear to have run away, and the search continues outside the mall,” a source close to the probe said.

Police have indicated Monday’s attack was a common armed robbery and had nothing to do with terrorism.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2015.