Overview
- The 11 Serbian nationals were detained in Belgrade and Velika Plana and are being questioned in Smederevo on suspected offenses including racial discrimination and espionage.
- Authorities say the group operated from April to September, placing pig heads at nine Paris-area mosques, defacing the Paris Holocaust memorial and several synagogues with green paint, and leaving “concrete skeletons” at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate.
- A suspected ringleader identified as M.G. remains at large and is accused of training the group on instructions from an unidentified foreign intelligence service.
- French investigators traced the Paris mosque incidents to a vehicle with Serbian plates after a Normandy farmer reported selling pig heads to two men; the pair left France soon after and a Croatia-registered phone linked to them was tracked into Belgium.
- French and German investigations continue without naming a country, with officials framing the acts as possible foreign interference consistent with methods seen in earlier Russia-linked disruption cases.