Four Romanian migrants have been sent to prison after inadvertently stealing a credit card belonging to the mother of France's tough new Interior Minister.

The saga saw Luisangela Valls, 68, targeted by the thieves as she visited a Monoprix supermarket in Paris last month.

They assumed that the shopper was just another frail old lady whom they could make money out of, Paris Criminal Court heard. 

Target: Four Romanian migrants have been sent to prison after inadvertently stealing a credit card belonging to the mother of France's tough new Interior Minister Manuel Valls (pictured)

In fact her 49-year-old son Manuel Valls was just about to be put in charge of maintaining law and order in France by new president Francois Hollande.

Two of the Romanians were young women aged 20 and 25 who looked over Mrs Valls's shoulder as she paid for her groceries, and then memorised her pin number.

A few minutes later Gabi-Ionel Petcu, 24, pick-pocketed Mrs Valls's purse and made off with the same credit card. 

 

 

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Within an hour, unauthorised transactions began to take place all over the French capital, as the gang went on a £3,000 plus spending spree with the card.

Purchases ranged from rent payment on a flat being used by the Romanians, to the hiring of bicycles.

But they were caught four days later close to the Paris Opera when one of the women tried to use a second stolen card as the four went shopping in a department store. 

After their arrests, phone records linked them with the supermarket crime involving Mrs Valls.

All four Romanians were captured on CCTV inside the shop, and their images were all identified by Monoprix staff.

Petcu and the three other gang members, whose names have not been released, pleaded guilty to theft and credit card fraud.

Petcu, who asked for six similar incidents to be taken into consideration, was given 15 months in prison. His co-accused all received a year in prison, with four months suspended.

Mr Valls is on the right-wing of France's ruling Socialist party and has already declared himself to be in favour of tougher punishments for repeat offenders.

He is now in charge of all of the country's police services, but would not technically be permitted to interfere in a case involving a member of his family.

Last year France launched an onslaught against illegal Roma camps full of Romanian immigrants which had sprung up around the French capital.

It followed Claude Gueant, the then Interior Minister, warning that the vast majority of sneak thefts in Paris were being carried out by Romanians.