A Paris armed robbery led by up to three men left six people in a hostage situation and 12 others trapped at a Primark clothing store Monday.
Special forces were called to the Qwartz de Villeneuve-la-Garenne mall in an effort to free the 18 workers inside the store, but none of the suspects were found
during a sweep of the building, according to NBC News.
It is believed that one of the suspects was an employee of the shop,
a police source told Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News. All remain at large.
The incident is believed to have been an armed robbery with shotguns, though prosecutors told AFP the suspects did not appear to have left with any money.
“I saw two robbers, dressed in black, hooded,” 20-year-old witness Bruno Jahin told AFP. “They were calm, not in a hurry. The tallest . . . had a gun; I think it was a pump-action shotgun. The other man was smaller.”
The men struck around 6:30 a.m. as employees began to stock shelves.
“Everyone was running and screaming, ‘They are armed, they are armed.
We must get out,’” a witness told Le Parisien newspaper.
“I heard 'this is a hold-up, you must go' several times . . . I turned around and took the lift,” Jahin said.
One worker, who took refuge in a bathroom, first contacted her boyfriend around 7 a.m. in a text message, saying there were hostages taken by
two armed men, according to The Daily Telegraph. The boyfriend then called police.
All 18 were evacuated, but one of them was “unwell, but no one was injured,” police told AFP.
Police originally believed the gunmen were still in the mall because security cameras did not show them exiting, but later announced that the suspects had escaped and the search would continue outside the building, according to The Telegraph.
France has been on heightened alert since terrorist attacks in January in which 17 people were killed.
According to The Telegraph, a police spokesman said, “Nothing leads us to believe this hold-up is terror-related.”
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