Armed assailants take $38,000 from French casino just down the street from Interpol

Armed assailants rob French casino, get $38,000

PARIS — Masked men brandishing assault rifles burst into a crowded French casino early Sunday, fired shots at the ceiling and made off with about euro28,000 ($37,800), police and the casino said.

Police said it took only three minutes for the thieves to carry out their operation at “Le Pharaon” casino in the central city of Lyon — located just down the street from the headquarters of Interpol, the international police agency.

Four masked men wearing white and carrying Kalashnikov rifles burst into the casino and fired two shots into the ceiling, said Michel Neyret of Lyon’s judicial police. The men used an angle grinder to break into the cashiers’ area. Another man waited outside. All five fled aboard a black BMW.

Two security guards had light injuries while none of the 200 clients inside were hurt, Neyret said.

The casino’s director, Guy Benhamou, told TF1 television that his accountants believed the thieves made off with about euro28,000.

Separately, in Paris, burglars attempted to break into a BNP Paribas bank in southern Paris — by drilling a hole through an underground wall from a sewer — but an alarm went off and the group fled, police said. BNP Paribas spokesman Antoine Sire said the group had tried unsuccessfully to reach a vault holding safe deposit boxes and that nothing was stolen.

In a similar case last week, robbers bored through an underground wall into a LCL bank vault in Paris, held a security guard hostage for hours and made off with loot from private safe deposit boxes.