The Pollet Gang (La Bande Pollet), also known as the Bandits of Hazebrouck (Bandits d’Hazebrouck) were a French criminal group active in Nord and Pas-de-Calais, as well as Belgium from 1889 until their arrests in 1906. The group was primarily led by its founder Abel Pollet (9 October 1873 – 11 January 1909), along with his brother Auguste, Canut Vromant and Théophile Deroo. The joint execution of the four leaders for murder was the first following a three-year suspension of the death penalty in France.
Biography Abel Pollet was born in Vieux-Berquin on October 9, 1873.Béthunois : frères Pollet, guillotine et Brigades du Tigre, pour Jacques Messiant, c’est tout un roman.
He became a smuggler who put his gift for leadership to use organizing his fellow traffickers into a more lucrative and violent line of work. Thanks, presumably, to the syndicate’s pre-existing professional aptitude for evasion, it persisted for years and authored a quantity of robberies and murders that authorities could only guess at (the official homicide estimation ran north of 50). It was a spree so atrocious that it helped force the end of the death penalty moratorium, as sentiment was so strong against the Hazebrouck gang.1909: The Pollet gang, breaking the French moratorium.
The murders committed in northern France by the Pollet brothers' gang, also known as the Hazebrouck's bandits, hit the headlines.
Four members of the bandits were sentenced to death on 26 June 1908 in Saint-Omer.
The Capricornian in Rockhampton reported:FRENCH MURDER GANG. The Capricornian, Rockhampton, Queensland, 15 August 1908.
Abel Pollet confessed of his own accord to participation in no fewer than 250 crimes.
Execution
The Advertiser in Adelaide ran about the quadruple execution on February 20, 1909:The Advertiser, 1909-02-02.
See also Anatole Deibler Guillotine
Sources Jacques Messiant: L'Affaire Pollet – À l'origine des Brigades du Tigre. Éditions Ouest-France, Rennes 2015. . Sylvain Larue: Les nouvelles affaires criminelles de France. De Borée Éditions, 2009, p. 138–146. Carnets d’exécutions, 1885–1939, Anatole Deibler, présentés et annotés par Gérard A. Jaeger, Éditions L’Archipel, Paris 2004. Matthias Blazek: Räuberbande versetzte in den Jahren nach 1900 ganz Nordfrankreich in Schockzustand – Guillotine wird nach jahrelanger Pause für Vierfachhinrichtung 1909 in Béthune aufgestellt. In: Kameradschaftliches aus Fontainebleau – Mitteilungsblatt des Freundeskreises Deutscher Militärischer Bevollmächtigter in Frankreich, nr. 43 and 44, September 2015 and April 2016, Münster (Westfalen)/Adelheidsdorf, 2015/16, p. 8 ff. and 5 ff. Matthias Blazek: Räuberbande versetzte in den Jahren nach 1900 ganz Nordfrankreich in Schockzustand – Guillotine wird nach jahrelanger Pause für Vierfachhinrichtung 1909 in Béthune aufgestellt. In: Journal der juristischen Zeitgeschichte (JoJZG), nr. 3/2014, de Gruyter, Berlin, 2014, p. 104 ff.
Notes and references
External links 1909: The Pollet gang, breaking the French moratorium. François CARON, Il y a cent ans : la fin de la « bande à Pollet » à Béthune, Généalogie 62, nr. 101, 1st trimestre 2009, Hénin-Beaumont, p. 31–37 (1800 ex.) Les exécutés , hazebrouck-autrefois.com. Les exécutés , hazebrouck-autrefois.com. Guillotine wird nach jahrelanger Pause für Vierfachhinrichtung 1909 in Béthune aufgestellt, Matthias-Blazek.eu.