Six French men jailed over CHF40m cash truck heist in Switzerland

Between 2017 and 2019, western Switzerland saw a series of spectacular attacks against money trucks blamed on Lyon-based criminals. A money van in Daillens, north of Lausanne, in December 2019. Keystone / Laurent Gillieron

A Lyon court has handed prison sentences ranging from seven to 20 years to six French men for robbing a cash truck carrying money and valuables worth over CHF40 million ($46 million) in western Switzerland in 2017. 

The Rhône Assize Court in Lyon announced the verdicts on January 26. Three of the accused were sentenced in absentia; they have been on the run for a year.

The court imposed the heaviest sentence – 20 years in jail – on the three who were absent, repeat offenders with long criminal records. The three others who appeared in court were sentenced to 16, 12 and 7 years in prison following a five-day trial.

+ Why is Switzerland a target for cash truck heists?

The six men, aged 39 to 54 and mostly from Lyon, attacked a cash convoy van in May 2017 on a road between Geneva and Lausanne, near Nyon. Posing as police officers, they held up the truck with assault rifles and tied up the drivers before putting them into the boots of two cars. After crossing into France, they forced one of the drivers to open the convoy truck.

The six criminals, who had been under police surveillance for nine months, were arrested four hours after the robbery in a villa in France’s Haute-Savoie region. They were in possession of banknotes of different currencies, four gold bars and several thousand precious stones, estimated at over CHF40 million.

+ Trial opens into CHF40 million Swiss cash convoy heist

The case is part of a series of spectacular attacks against money trucks in Switzerland blamed on Lyon-based criminals, carried out in canton Vaud between 2017 and 2019. Robberies also took place in Mont-sur-Lausanne, Daillens, La Sarraz and Chavornay.

The attacks ended after the Vaud government tightened the rules for the transportation of cash in the region. Although most of the suspects are being tried in France, trials have already taken place in canton Vaud in Switzerland. They resulted in the convictions of an Algerian man and two suspects from Geneva for the attacks in Mont-sur-Lausanne and Chavornay.

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