TThree Colombian men and one woman were sentenced to two years in prison on Monday by the Bobigny criminal court, a municipality on the outskirts of Paris, for multiple thefts at Olympic sites.
According to the criteria of
To Colombians, aged 24 to 43, The courts banned them from going to France for ten years after serving their sentence and they will have to pay a fine of 5,000 euros. ($5,466).
The investigation began on July 28 after Beijing Momenta Media filed a complaint alleging the theft of one of its cameras, valued at 15,000 euros, from the press gallery at the Olympic swimming pool.
American athlete Ben Hallock also reported that his accreditation had been stolen.
Investigators reviewed video surveillance cameras and identified them. The images show a woman watching while one of the men stole a camera.
Two of the robbers, a Colombian brother and sister living in Brazil, appeared before the Bobigny court on Monday along with the woman’s partner and a friend of the group and were jailed.
Cameras, lenses, computers and wallets were some of the objects stolen by Colombians during the Games.
Bobigny prosecutor Eric Mathais posted a photo on X of the loot seized during the search of the place where they lived, rented through Airbnb.
“Most of the objects were not found,” said prosecutor Clotilde Deney at the hearing, who requested four years in prison for the detainees.
He added that “this is one of those cases that undermines the Olympic Games and the fervor with which we all get involved.”
Thieves claimed they went to Paris for sightseeing
The criminals, who arrived in France in July, sometimes appeared dressed as tourists and sometimes as members of the organization at the Olympic sites.but they also stole wallets and computers from restaurants and hotels in Paris.
During the search, around twenty currencies and receipts for Western Union transfers were found.
In court, the Colombians admitted to several robberies of opportunism, but insisted they had come to do tourism.
“Can you explain what you visited?” the president of the court, Jean-Baptiste Acchiardi, asked an interpreter in Spanish.
“The Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Notre-Dame church,” said one of the Colombians who admitted to several robberies. “Oh, bad luck, (the church) is closed,” the judge interrupted him.
We found no tickets to museums, no photos admiring the splendors of our country. Instead, we see a number of stolen objects.
“We found no tickets to museums, no photos admiring the splendors of our country. Instead, we saw a number of stolen objects,” he added.
The Bobigny court had prepared for a possible increase in criminal activity, but due to the heavy police presence, the expected spate of robberies did not occur.
The case of the Colombians is one of the few related to the Games that are judged in the Paris region.
This is not the first time that a network of thieves from Latin America has been involved in sporting events in France.
Some of them were present at the Champions League final in May 2022, sadly remembered for the lack of security and robberies of tourists.
In July 2022, three Peruvians were sentenced in Bobigny to six and nine months suspended prison sentences for concealing stolen phones.
Following the Champions League final, the authorities received 80 complaints.
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