For the past 5 days now, the metro ticket price has skyrocketed, jumping to 2.50€ for all of Île-de-France. Some folks have decided to get ahead and stock up for the centuries to come. Indeed, thieves broke into one of the buildings of the Paris city hall, located in the 4th arrondissement, to steal dozens of boxes filled with metro tickets, as well as gift vouchers. We're spilling all the details.
Golden Tickets
On December 31st, around 5 PM, as everyone is leaving the Dasco building to celebrate New Year's Eve, everything seems perfectly normal. However, 2 days later, when a cleaning lady arrives around 6 AM, she quickly realizes that something is off. The authorities are contacted, and it doesn’t take long to uncover the scandal: several hundred thousand
🔴 MAIRIE DE @Paris
600 000 € de tickets de métro volés à la DASCO (Direction des affaires scolaires). Outre les dizaines de cartons de titres de transports, les malfaiteurs se sont également emparés de 33 000 € de chèques-cadeaux.https://t.co/PSgJ5SypGw https://t.co/IhrgBA3360
A rather trivial object with little value on paper, whose disappearance could still cost the city a fortune. Initially, the damage was estimated at 400,000€, but it has now been increased to 600,000€. In addition to these dozens of boxes containing 20,000 banknotes each, the thieves also stole hundreds of gift cards, raising their total haul by 33,000€.
An ongoing investigation
For 4 days now, law enforcement has been conducting the investigation to track down the burglars and try to recover some of their loot before it's too late. However, the clues are scarce on-site, due to the lack of alarms or cameras, and metro tickets are unfortunately very difficult to trace.
Dites-vous que les génies de la mairie de Paris avaient stocké plus de 650 000 euros en 'tickets de métro' et chèques-cadeaux, sans aucune sécurité. Je ne sais pas qui gère notre capitale, mais autant d'incompétence à tous les niveaux, ça fait peur. pic.twitter.com/wcbkwTb28f
— Vautrin (@OuranosMK) January 5, 2025
Fortunately, the gift card trail could lead to something, thanks to the unique numbers on each of them, which would help trace back to the culprits. Just a reminder, these tickets and checks were meant for organizing cultural outings for all the little Parisian schoolchildren, and we hope that they won't have to pay too dearly for the consequences of this attack.