Early on Thursday morning, a gun shop in the centre of Sion found its entrance had literally been blown open. Five individuals used explosives to blow open the front door, made off with some of the stock and fled in a vehicle with French number plates. The Valais police launched a major operation and arrested all of them in the Martigny area: four French nationals and one Portuguese national aged between 17 and 24, one of whom was a minor. After breaking through a police roadblock during their escape, they ended up running on foot through the countryside with part of the loot before being caught.
The owner of Dayer Armes does not mince his words. He cites “laxity in the justice system” and “a lack of border controls” as the direct causes of what is happening. And the phrase “what is happening” is no coincidence: the same thing has been happening for months in various parts of French-speaking Switzerland. Yverdon, Renens, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne in the canton of Vaud, Evionnaz and, twice now, in Sion itself. The pattern is the same: arrivals in the early hours of the morning, forced entry using explosives or heavy tools, and vehicles with foreign number plates.
Fedpol has decided to set up a joint task force with the cantonal police forces to determine whether there is any coordination between the various heists. The question that nobody asks out loud but which hangs in the air is: what do they want the stolen goods for? There are many gun shops in Switzerland because there are many legal gun owners. The fact that this is starting to become a vulnerability is no minor matter.