Shootout Behind the Jeweller - Quai des Bergues
On Saturday 13 May 2017 two robbers dressed as women held up a jeweller on this car free quay, then traded 17 shots with the shop's security guard in the lane behind when their getaway scooter would not start. Nobody was hit, both men were caught, and the guard was acquitted three times.
Sobre este lugar
Planned in the early 1830s with the engineer Guillaume-Henri Dufour, the Quai des Bergues owes its name to the 16th century German merchant Hans Kleberger, whose estate here was known as En Cléberger; the Pont des Bergues and the Hôtel des Bergues, then the largest hotel of its kind in Switzerland, both opened in 1834. Today luxury boutiques line this car free quay, which is exactly why two men from the Lyon suburbs scouted it in May 2017. On Saturday 13 May, at about 10:45, they rang a jeweller's bell disguised as women, threatened the two staff with a revolver and left with watches and jewellery worth about CHF 658,580. Their stolen scooter waited in Rue Guillaume-Tell, the narrow lane behind the block, but it would not start. The shop's security guard came running back from the Rues-Basses, and in seconds the gunman fired 4 shots and the guard 13; police found 27 cases and fragments along the lane, yet nobody was hit. The gunman was jailed for ten years and his accomplice for five and a half. The guard, charged with attempted murder, was acquitted three times, last on 3 October 2023, because who fired first could never be established and the courts accepted that he had fired defensively to stop the scooter.
Datos clave
- 17 shots — Shots fired in the lane behind the jeweller: four by the robber and 13 by the security guard. Not one person was hit.
- 658580 Swiss francs — The value of the watches and jewellery the two robbers took from the shop, according to the court.
- 10 years in prison — The sentence for the robber who opened fire, convicted of aggravated robbery and attempted murder, plus ten years' expulsion from Switzerland.