A security guard has been arrested and charged with stealing over 33,000 face masks from the Space Centre in Kourou in French Guiana.
The guard, named in reports as Christian Antoinette, 43, worked at the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana, which is set to launch the European Space Agency’s new Ariane 6 rocket some time in 2020 for its first test flight.
The guard reportedly worked for an unnamed private company subcontracted to provide security for the offices at the Space Centre and was arrested on Tuesday morning at his home, but the information has only come to light now.
Prosecutor Samuel Finielz says he will have to answer for the “theft by deceit between 10th and 20th March” of “33,000 surgical face masks” which were being kept in one of the Space Centre’s buildings.
The prosecutor says that hundreds of masks were found when the authorities searched the suspect’s home.
Finielz added that CCTV images showed that “the agent left on numerous occasions the area he was supposed to be guarding and went to the zone in which the masked were being stored.”
The Space Centre filed a complaint on 23rd March after noticing that the masks were missing. It said that it had originally purchased “this type of mask to fight the H1N1 epidemic in 2009”, adding that “this stock was most of what we had made available” to the regional ARS health agency to fight the coronavirus.
It added: “We still have some masks left. We are keeping them for the security of local personnel, and the rest we will make available to the ARS. We don’t want to say how many we have so as not to impede the ongoing investigation.”
The security guard is set to stand trial on 26th May for the theft of the masks. Hie trial date was earlier, but he reportedly requested a delay so that he could prepare his case.
The prosecutor, during a preliminary hearing, said that the theft showed that the Space Centre has a security problem, the guard allegedly having carried out the theft over the course of four nights.
The prosecutor asked for the suspect, Mr Antoinette, to be held in pre-trial detention, but the judge eventually sided with the defence, who successfully argued that the suspect could be released on bail.
At the end of the hearing, the suspect, referring to when he was questioned by police, said: “If I did not speak up at first, it was because I was afraid of losing my job.”
The suspect reportedly admitted to having given masks to his family and to having sold some. Local media report he allegedly sold masks to local shops in the city of Kourou. Some reports state the actual figure could be “almost 40,000” masks.
French Guiana has so far reported 141 cases of coronavirus, including one death, according to the latest figures from the local branch of the ARS (agence regionale sante) health agency.
The Space Centre, including the museum, has been closed to the public since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis and all operations have been suspended.
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Newsflash
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