The facts date back to 2013. It is a hostage-taking of the family of a UBS employee for a robbery. The facts, as related by the indictment, are worthy of a film.
We have five men charged with hostage-taking, extortion and blackmail, with one of them emerging as the mastermind of this heist. The indictment takes us back to 2013, the alleged instigator of the robbery would have first developed a plan for almost two years to attack the UBS bank in Cornavin. To do this, he targets one of the employees with access to the chests. She would then have inquired regarding him and organized the hostage-taking of his relatives.
Helped by accomplices, he would have entered the apartment of the family of the UBS employee by posing as police officers. The family was tied up, threatened and held up with a gun. That’s a fact. Then a picture of the scene was taken. Photo which was then used to blackmail the bank employee.
The organizer of the robbery would have gone to find him in front of the UBS Cornavin, would have shown him the photo and given bags to fill them with banknotes. The employee at the time complies. The thugs leave with 1,249,000 francs.
The result is also incredible, the main organizer of the robbery would have fled and left the country with great fanfare, thanks to an accomplice. First by car with driver to Prangins. There he jumps into a helicopter for Cointrin. Why this backtracking? This is the only way to land directly on the tarmac of Geneva airport and take a private plane, as if it were a celebrity, avoiding all customs or police checks. His destination is then Marrakech. The then 24-year-old man then spent 2 to 3 years in Morocco before being arrested.
The brains of the case
This man was imprisoned in 2011 for acts preparatory to a robbery… that of UBS Cornavin precisely, which he had in the viewfinder, but this blow in 2013, it is not he told him. However, he had also identified the same bank employee as a potential target. Except that he would not have proceeded like that for the rest of the events, he said. How then, can he be in possession of a plan of the bank UBS Cornavin, at home? He justifies in this way: at the same time as him, a man was imprisoned on his floor at Champ Dollon for having robbed this same bank. “He had it in his file in prison, I got it that way, a godsend for information.” Before putting away the plan in his belongings and completely forgetting regarding it. “When I get out of prison at the end of 2012 it’s no longer a project anyway, I don’t even think regarding it anymore and the document stays there in a corner” he explained.
On the other hand, when the hostage-taking and the robbery take place, he says he learns regarding it through the press and immediately panics. Obviously the link might be quickly made with him. This is the case, he will quickly be portrayed in the press as the author of the facts. It is for this reason that he fled, to save himself, by using all possible means, thanks to a third party also warned. He flees even if it means physically separating from his family. But he is categorical, he is not at the origin of this robbery, did not participate in it and therefore does not have the loot. He does not budge, that day at the time of the facts, he was either at the restaurant at Pâquis or at his apartment.
His audition ended shortly before 6 p.m. tonight. Place, this Thursday, for the other defendants before the indictment of the prosecutor.
