Cops nab France’s ‘ serial puncturer’

Bordeaux, Dec. 1: After years of playing cat- andmouse with police, a man who punctured the tyres of thousands of cars around the southwestern French city of Bordeaux has finally been apprehended.

The 45- year- old, arrested Wednesday, carried out his campaign of vandalism for six years, planning his nocturnal puncturing trips with the precision of a thief preparing a bank heist.

The man, who has yet to be named, told police he acted in anger against society.

He has slashed up to 70 tyres a night since 2011, choosing neighbourhoods at random around the port city to stay one step ahead of the police.

By his own estimate, the unemployed “serial puncturer” — a nickname he gave himself — vandalised 6,000 cars around the French wine capital, a figure deemed by police to be “credible”.

Investigators said they breathed a “huge sigh of relief ” following the capture of a suspect they have been chasing since 2014 after realising they were dealing with a serial offender. He had made their life difficult by leaving no DNA evidence and stealthily avoiding CCTV cameras, keeping deliberately irregular hours and routes to throw them off the scent.

What’s more, he often punctured the tyres gently so that they deflated slowly, making it even harder to track his movements.

“It might seem like something to laugh about,” Bordeaux prosecutor Marie- Madeleine Alliot acknowledged Thursday.

But it was no laughing matter for residents who woke up to find their tyres slashed.