UK Edition
Dog hair leads to arrest of ex-SAS man suspected of French chateau robbery
French police arrested a former SAS soldier suspected of robbing an Anglo-German couple at their French chateau after reportedly finding a hair from his Jack Russell dog at the property.
The 57-year-old was held along with six other people more than a year after after Ralph and Victoria Heinig were robbed at gunpoint at their Château de La Durantie home, near the village of Lanouaille, southwest France.
The masked robbers spoke English and addressed the owners by name, police said, when they burst into the residence on Nov 15 last year at 10.15pm while the family were entertaining guests and their children were sleeping upstairs.
They threatened to kill the owners and stole several thousand euros in cash from an underground safe, as well as a luxury watch reportedly worth €20,000 (£17,750), before escaping.
The former special operations soldier, who was named locally as Derek, was held by gendarmes after detectives traced all Britons in the area who owned a Jack Russell, Le Parisien newspaper reported.
Police found cannabis plants and resin, and ecstasy pills in the property in the village of Charmé when they arrested him.
The other arrests were made in the Dordogne region and in the town of Cognac in the Charente department.
Mr and Mrs Heinig bought the historic but rundown chateau for €1.6 million (£1.4million) 10 years ago and spent €600,000 restoring and refurbishing it. They now rent it out for holidays, and as a venue for wedding shoots and film backdrops.
Mr Heinig yesterday praised the “fantastic” work carried out by the French police in the run up to the arrests.
He told the Telegraph: “The anniversary of the robbery came up just a month ago. We had kind of forgotten about it but then you think about it again and you never know what people are up to, so it’s a relief.”
Mr Heinig spoke of his shock at revelations that a former member of the SAS was among those arrested.
“That was a big surprise. One of the people who came here, he was very professional and very calm so I thought that he might have done this before,” he said.
Mr Heinig added: “The thing is, this was an inside job. It was somebody who worked here as a supplier – we don’t know exactly who – gave information about the chateau on to somebody. We have now increased security.”
The Heinigs spent months restoring the chateau, which now sleeps 32 guests who pay between £5,830 and £11,793 a week, depending on the time of year, to stay at the Chateau, which was built in 1840 for the Duke of Isly.