Fugitive Returns to France After Decade on Run, Confesses to 2011 Gold Store Robbery

"Yes, I acknowledge having participated in this armed robbery. I turned myself in because it’s not a life to be on the run. We stagnate, we have remorse... I’m here to pay my debt and apologize to the victims," admits Ilyas Ameur, during his trial before the Var Assize Court. He ended his fugitive status in August 2020 by leaving Morocco for France. The court had sentenced him in absentia to 15 years of criminal imprisonment in December 2013, reports Le Télégramme. DNA evidence was found in the sleeve of a jacket abandoned on the seat of a stolen Mercedes. The group had used this car to leave the shopping center.

The events had taken place on September 28, 2011. The repentant, Jonathan Lacroix, Tayeb Hachaichi and Yannis Hadji had robbed the Forum de l’Or in La Garde. "My role was to put the jewelry in the bag. I didn’t have a weapon. Only Tayeb Hachaichi had one, an AK-47. When I put my hand in the display case to grab the jewelry, the double glazing came up..." he recounts.

A criminal had violently kicked an employee of the jewelry store in the throat, to express his dissatisfaction with the meager loot collected. "I believe it was Yannis Hadji who had done that," the accused remembers. A statement confirmed by the