France's Looted Luxury Hits Vinted in Hours, Ministers Pounce

Carrefour blinked first. The French grocery giant slashed its fiscal 2026 profit outlook on Tuesday, blaming riot-related damage, and watched about 15% of its share price evaporate — roughly €1.7 billion ($1.9 billion) in market value. CEO Alexandre Bompard said around 50 of its stores were hit on day one, with many looted and considerable damage done. The company puts the hit at €80 million to €200 million of operating income.

The crackdown came fast. By Monday evening, Commerce Minister Serge Papin and digital minister Anne Le Hénanff had hauled Vinted, Leboncoin, Amazon, eBay, Meta and TikTok onto a videoconference and demanded the listings come down. The platforms agreed to report suspicious posts to investigators, watch for abnormally low prices, bulk lots of new goods and items still carrying anti-theft tags, warn buyers that buying stolen goods is also a crime, and publish how many listings they pull — with a first tally due within 48 hours, according to French tech site NeozOne.

The scale is staggering. Papin said more than 3,000 businesses were looted or damaged over the weekend, including shops in Paris's Les Halles district and stores like Hermès, North Face and Louis Vuitton. Rating agency Morningstar DBRS estimates insured losses could reach €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) if the violence stops, while France's main retail federation puts direct damage at several hundred million euros.

Vinted, Europe's leading secondhand marketplace, says it is on the case. A spokesperson told Fortune the sale of stolen goods is strictly prohibited on the platform and that it has zero tolerance for it, adding that the company is working with law enforcement and French authorities. Vinted had already told trade outlet RetailDetail it was seeing a clear spike in listings for luxury items — goods that don't normally appear in those volumes. eBay said it forbids the sale of stolen property and leans on algorithms and data-driven tools to flag suspicious patterns, while TikTok said its Shop bans consumer-to-consumer sales and requires registered businesses to prove products were legitimately purchased. None of the platforms Fortune contacted answered whether stolen items were actually listed on their sites.

President Emmanuel Macron warned thieves would be apprehended. In France, handling stolen goods is punishable by up to five years in prison and a €375,000 ($420,000) fine. The French Senate begins debating a so-called casseurs-payeurs, or rioters pay, bill on Oct. 27 that would hold everyone who took part in a gathering that caused damage collectively liable for it.

There's a reason the resale pipeline is so attractive. Organized retail crime has ballooned from a $45 billion problem in 2024 to a projected $53 billion, according to security firm Pinkerton, and the British Independent Retailers Association estimates about 60% of items shoplifted from its members eventually get sold online. Serpil Hall, a strategic advisor at Datos Insights, told Fortune that looted items are often sold quickly, in bulk and below market price, with the proceeds moving through payment accounts that are themselves a fraud problem — calling the resale of stolen goods the final step of a payment fraud.