A Paris court on Friday sentenced six youngsters, all of whom live in the Paris region, to two to six years in prison for “violence against a specific ethnic group” that robbed ethnic Chinese in Paris and the northern suburbs of Saint-Denis.
From August to October 2018, the six men committed more than a dozen robberies in Paris, as well as in La Courneuve, Pantin, and Aubervilliers, cities in the northern suburbs of Paris with a large Chinese population, victimizing more than 20 Chinese.
Aubervilliers, in the northern suburbs of Paris, belongs to the province of Saint-Denis, where there is one of the largest textile import and export platforms in Europe, with about 10,000 Chinese working there.
Paris prosecutors say the perpetrators have a specific “modus operandi,” and the targets are invariably Chinese. The “quite professional” means of operation, they are generally in the Chinese or Asian-infested restaurant near the opportunity to strike, first screening the target, and then stalking, until the victim’s home, violent beating, coercion victims to hand over money and property.
The Paris prosecutor said that the perpetrators had a division of labor from stalking to stalking, and that “the crime was done quickly and violently,” and that “one of them waited in the car, four others stepped out of the car, one of them specialized in monitoring the door and the surroundings, and the other three robbed violently,” with a total of 15 “murders” committed by six people.
The prosecutor charged that the gang’s crimes were “ethnically targeted” and therefore racist, which constitutes an aggravating circumstance. However, none of the Chinese victims were present at Thursday’s court hearing. The defendants argued that they did not specifically target Chinese people and that it was “purely a coincidence” and that they were only looking for “people who drive luxury cars.
The prosecutor also said that in the northern Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, where an average of two to three thefts against Asians occur every day, “today, the Chinese community is afraid to stand out because they are systematically targeted by the perpetrators.”
In 2016, Zhang Zhaolin, a 49-year-old Chinese national, was killed by a pickpocket in Aubervilliers, where thousands of people flooded the streets of Paris to protest the “racism against Asians.
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