Antiques dealer kills taxman who had come to check books

FRANCE was in shock yesterday after an antiques dealer stabbed to death a tax inspector who had dropped by to examine his accounts.

Visiting with a female colleague at lunchtime on Monday, the unnamed taxman, 43, went to the dealer’s homebased business in Bullecourt, near Arras in the Pas-de-calais area.

The visit was part of an investigation “to check the business’s accounts”, said Sylvain Barbier Sainte-marie, the Arras prosecutor. But once the pair were inside, the unnamed dealer, 46, threatened them with a knife and gun and tied them up. He then telephoned his exwife to ask her to visit him and she found the 39-year-old female inspector tied to a chair in a state of shock, while the chief tax inspector lay dead in a pool of blood with eight stab wounds to the stomach and throat. She then found her ex-husband, a father of two, dead in an outhouse, gun in hand. He had apparently committed suicide.

The prosecutor said initial investigations suggested the murder was “premeditated” as the dealer had bought neck restrainers and attached them to the chairs he used to detain his victims.

Police have launched an investigation into murder and sequestration.

Police said the antiques dealer had been known for “violence towards minors” during a fight and had attended an anti-violence course in 2019.