Confidential British drone secrets lifted from Paris train station

Herald Globe (ANI) Thursday 23rd February, 2012

Top secret documents, which contained classified information related to British drones, were stolen by two men at the Gare du Nord station in Paris.

A high-level executive working for French company Dassault Aviation was on his way to London on the Euro star train on February 2nd when the theft happened.

According to Paris Judicial Police, the unnamed man briefly left his case unattended after his female colleague was harassed by a stranger, The Telegraph reports.

The documents in the case were marked 'Defence - Confidential' and contained details of a 'joint Franco-British drone', a legal source close to the case revealed.

The source said that the theft happened at around 5p.m, when the station was packed with cross-Channel travelers.

The source further revealed that when the Dassault executive returned to a self-service ticket machine after helping his colleague his briefcase had disappeared.

"His attention had been purposefully diverted. It was not a random theft. We have to determine whether the thieves were targeting confidential documents on the drone project or other valuables in the briefcase," the source said.

The person who hassled the woman disappeared almost immediately, and has not been seen since.

He is described as being in his 30s and whoever took the briefcase was not seen at all.

While the police insisted that a highly sophisticated operation by a spy agency could not be ruled out, Dassault said it was probably a random theft. (ANI)