Highway robbery: France arrests vehicle-hopping thieves

French authorities said Tuesday they have arrested four Ukrainians suspected of carrying out daring highway heists that involved them jumping onto moving trucks to rob them of consumer electronics.

The suspected gang were arrested last week, the prosecutor for the northern city of Bethune, Etienne Thieffry, said.

They were believed to have staged brazen nighttime operations on France's motorways in which they drove up behind trucks moving at around 90 kilometres (56 miles) per hour, jumped aboard, and threw pricey electronic items back to the trailing car.

They then jumped off themselves onto the following car, to get away with their loot.

Thieffry said the suspects were thought to have hauled off more than 200,000 euros ($225,000) worth of goods with this "pretty rare" method.

The prosecutor's office launched an investigation after several haulage companies in late 2025 and early 2026 reported robberies of cargoes on trucks during stretches when they had not made any stops.

French authorities, with cooperation from Ukrainian counterparts, used a combination of human detective work and electronic surveillance to identify the four suspects on the outskirts of the city of Angers, near a warehouse that had been hit by thefts.

The four were arrested last Thursday in a swoop that involved the OCLDI police unit specialised in targeting mobile organised crime groups.

A search turned up a car that was identified as being used in the high-speed heists.

The Ukrainians have been charged with aggravated theft, criminal damage and criminal association. They were to appear in court on Wednesday in Bethune and if convicted could face up to seven years in prison and fines of 100,000 euros.

A Paris court in 2022 already sentenced some 20 Romanians who carried out similar moving robberies to terms ranging from 18 months to six years.