GASSED IN THEIR BEDS BY RIVIERA ROBBERS: Terrifying ordeal of the British tourists falling victim to Mediterranean gang crime wave
By Emily Andrews
Mail Online
August 14,2010
Britons on the French Riviera are being drugged and robbed by thieves who gas them as they sleep.
The gangs quietly break in or slip inside patio doors left open because of the heat.
They then crouch down and release the gas into air conditioning units or under the victims' bedroom doors.
After waiting outside for the gas to take effect, they creep back in and can take their time to ransack the rooms and steal cash, jewellery, credit cards, cameras and laptops.
The thieves wear masks to stop them succumbing themselves.
One victim, Lisa Smythe, was staying with her two sons in a four-bedroom house in Valbonne when they fell victim to an £80,000 robbery.
The family were gassed through the letter box, but when one of the sons woke up to find masked men in his room they injected him with something to knock him out.
Mrs Smythe, 38, woke up feeling groggy and struggled to wake her sons.
Her eight-year-old, Robbie, had a needle mark on his arm, and he had to be tested for HIV.
Jewellery, cash and computers worth £50,000 had been stolen, as well as a £30,000 Mercedes CLK Cabriolet.
French police suspect the involvement of Russian mafia and Romanian gangs who target English-speaking tourists and expats, believing them to be rich and owning expensive cars and yachts.
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