Pollet Gang
The Pollet Gang, also known as the Bandits of 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, 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.He became a smuggler who put his native gift for leadership to good use organizing his fellow traffickers into a more lucratively 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. It was a spree so atrocious that it helped force the end of the whole death penalty moratorium since sentiment was so strong against the Hazebrouck gang.
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:
Abel Pollet confessed of his own accord to participation in no fewer than 250 crimes.