A Chinese family robbed at home by fake policemen

The father of the assaulted family is a modest artisan of Aubervilliers (illustration). @ PATRICK KOVARIK / AFP

A Chinese family from Aubervilliers was sequestered and robbed by fake police officers at their home. The victims were apparently not chosen for their belonging to the Chinese community. 


False police officers arrived Monday night in La Courneuve in Seine-Saint-Denis, at the home of a Chinese family they sequestered, before robbing her of 3,000 euros, AFP said Wednesday from police sources. According to the first elements of the investigation, five people wearing police armbands or caps stamped "police" arrived Monday at 9:45 pm at the door of the pavilion. Exhibiting two handguns, they forcefully penetrated inside and handcuffed the couple, about fifty years of age, while keeping in check their 18-year-old daughter. They seized 3,000 euros in cash, before fleeing in a car.

The racist motive a priori dismissed. The Bobigny prosecutor's office charged the judicial police department of the investigation. At this stage, "one can not say that the victims were targeted because they belong to the Chinese community ," said a police source. "It is rather because they live in a suburban area" that they have been targeted. This source also points out that this modest family, whose father is a craftsman, does not have the profile of the "ideal" Chinese victim, that is to say, a merchant working in Aubervilliers, the new Path, As such, to carry a large sum of money in cash on him.

Chinese traders already attacked. In early September, also in Seine-Saint-Denis, a Chinese trader who was returning from work in Aubervilliers was assaulted at his home in Bobigny by two men who had followed him home. The duo and their accomplice had been put under investigation and imprisoned a few days later. The deaths in August in Aubervilliers of a Chinese fashion designer following a violent assault sparked strong mobilization of the Asian community and revealed the frequency of attacks, sometimes motivated by racist, facing Asians in Seine Saint-Denis, home to Europe's leading textile import and export platform. | europe1