French police are looking for a gang of champagne thieves after a high-speed motorway chase in which two heavy goods vehicles carrying a total of €600,000 (£523,000) worth of stolen prestige bottles sped through northern France.
Two trailers containing high-end champagne by Moët & Chandon disappeared in the early hours of Saturday morning in Reims, the capital of the Champagne region, according to reports in Le Parisien and on local TV.
The trailers, like most luxury cargoes, had been fitted with trackers and police swiftly located them later on Saturday morning as they moved along a local motorway.
A high-speed chase ensued in which the drivers leaped from their 38-tonne vehicles and managed to escape.
As a team of police cars approached, one of the lorry drivers had attempted to push them off the road. They slowed on to the hard shoulder, opened the cab door and leaped out while the lorry was still moving. A BMW car, seemingly serving as backup for the gang, approached, the driver got in and the car sped off and was lost by police.
After the driver had jumped out, the lorry was still moving at 10mph (15kmph) when an officer sprinted after it and managed to leap onboard and park it, a police source told Le Parisien.
The second lorry was later found abandoned outside a DIY store after its driver had fled. The entire load of champagne was recovered as the gang fled empty-handed.
France 3 regional TV reported that the police were examining the lorries for DNA evidence and seeking an organised gang presumed to have been acting on information about the transport of the load and who had access to networks for reselling the champagne.
