Car thieves betrayed by… flowers in Vallauris

A loud "boom," heard by two local residents in the early morning of Saturday, July 19, led to the arrest of four individuals.

The noise came from the theft of a dump truck, the perpetrators having forced open the gate of a property in Vallauris to steal it, hitting a police vehicle parked nearby in the process.

Alerted, the truck owner then gave chase, accompanied by a police officer "friend." The truck eventually stopped a little further on, before being set on fire by two individuals who immediately fled. "The damage was very significant," said a police officer from the Antibes police station.

On the way, the presence of two other young people behaving suspiciously prompted the soldier to return to the scene.

"Although they claimed their innocence, they were confused at the scene by the presence of flowers in their hair and on their clothes, identical to those in the victims' garden," said the police source.

Another car set on fire shortly before

Arriving on the scene, the police quickly established a link with the theft and burning of a small car which had occurred a few minutes earlier, also in Vallauris.

A video filmed by a witness shows four individuals pushing and then setting fire to a Smart car on the hillside of Chemin de Notre-Dame, before fleeing on foot.

In the images, the two young people who claimed their innocence were formally recognized and then arrested.

"All the accused were identified in another video found on their phone, in which they gave their first names, visibly drunk at the wheel of the small car that they ended up crashing," informs our source, who details the anarchic and dangerous driving of the latter.

Once all the protagonists were found, the police custody followed one after the other, with varying outcomes. The first two, considered to be mere escorts, had their cases dismissed by the Grasse court.

On the other hand, the other two - one of whom was already known to the police for other crimes - were brought before the courts last Wednesday and Thursday, then charged with all the facts, which they admitted.

They are, for the moment, placed under judicial supervision with a view to being judged a posteriori.