A hold-up gang in northern France has been targeting shipments of copper and nickel, hoping to profit as the metals' prices hit record highs, judicial officials said Monday.
Posing as police officers, a dozen armed men broke into a metal recycling plant in the north-eastern town of Reims last week, taking the director and his staff hostage.
The gang ordered a crane operator to fill two open-backed trucks with copper scrap, before making off with the booty - 40 tonnes of metal worth some 200,000 euros (250,000 dollars).
Four thieves - also posing as police - commandeered trucks carrying sheets of nickel near the northern city of Le Havre, once in January and again in March, taking the drivers captive and releasing them in the Paris area. Investigators believe the thieves were drawn by the soaring prices currently fetched by both metals.
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