Alert: Home Burglaries on the Rise This Year, and It’s No Coincidence!

At the outset of January, the initial statistics provided a comforting outlook: the Ministry of the Interior declared that residential burglaries had seen a slight decline over the past year. In 2025, there were 212,000 break-ins at private residences, marking a 3% decrease from 2024. This figure was significantly lower than the nearly 250,000 recorded a decade earlier. However, the early weeks of 2026 have seen a reversal of this trend. Although no detailed data has been released yet, local gendarmerie services are mentioning a “surge in burglaries” on social media. This appears to be a nationwide issue, with reports coming from regions like Brittany, Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, and Centre-Val-de-Loire.

The sudden spike in burglaries isn’t just a random occurrence. It’s not related to inflation or a sudden concern among criminals about their purchasing power. Instead, their activities are closely tied to recent economic developments. Specifically, there’s one main driver behind the increase in burglaries at the start of the year.

In fact, this increase is connected to… the soaring prices of gold. Over the past year, the price of gold has jumped nearly 60%: a kilogram of the precious yellow metal now costs an additional 50,000 euros compared to February 2025. The most significant spike was observed at the end of January 2026, with the price per ingot reaching 144,480.78 euros. Naturally, with gold priced over 140 euros per gram, gold jewelry, coins, and other items have become prime targets for thieves.

If the number of heists is on the rise, it’s not just jewelers and metal refineries that are being targeted. Homeowners are also falling victim to more sophisticated burglaries and scams. Online, there are plenty of accounts detailing such incidents. In local newspapers, several elderly individuals have shared stories of being robbed of jewelry or even gold bars hidden under their mattresses, sometimes by individuals posing as police officers or public servants during daylight hours.

Unfortunately, once stolen, the chances of recovering the gold are slim: the burglars often belong to large networks specialized in smuggling and fencing precious materials. Whether it’s in the form of jewelry or ingots, gold is typically melted down to erase any traceability. It is then converted or sold off, including to foreign markets, notably in Belgium.