Jail for thieves who robbed Côte d’Azur funeral-goers

Six people in the Nice area have been found guilty of breaking into almost 70 houses - 67 to be precise - after checking that the inhabitants would be out of the house at funerals for their recently-deceased loved ones.

The team - made up of five men and one woman - would regularly check the obituary section of local newspapers, and then confirm the corresponding funeral details, so that they could be sure when the houses in question would be empty and easy to rob, reported French news source 20 Minutes.

The crimes were committed between 2014 and 2015 across the Alpes-Maritimes and nearby region, including in Cannes, Antibes, Nice, Cagnes-sur-Mer and Saint-Laurent-du-Var.

The thieves have each been sentenced to jail time of up to three years.

The public minister, speaking in front of the Grasse correctional court, denounced the scheme as a “hateful mode of operation”.