Early events of Jacques Merlin

Merlin was born in Clichy, a suburb of Paris, and studied at the prestigious Collège Julius, a local Catholic school. But he was fired because of his aggressive behavior. He was briefly married in 1955-1956, and then served in the French army during the Algerian War. And returned to France in 1959.

Merlin was first arrested in 1962 after he and three other accomplices attempted to rob a bank. Before that, he was already a career criminal with many years of experience. He was released in 1963 after being sentenced to 18 months in prison. He then got a job at an architectural design firm, but was fired due to the company's downsizing in 1964. Then it was back to a life of crime.

In December 1965, Merlin was arrested in a villa in Palma, Mallorca (located in Spain). He was sentenced to six months in prison. Later it was claimed that the Spanish government recognized that he had served the French intelligence service.

In 1966, Merlin opened a restaurant in the Canary Islands (an archipelago of seven volcanic islands off the northwest coast of Africa), and then robbed a hotel in Chamonix in November 1967. In February 1968, he and his mistress flew to Canada and worked briefly as a private driver. After a failed abduction attempt, he flew to the United States, only to be arrested in Arkansas and extradited to Canada.

Merlin was sentenced to ten years in prison for deception, but in 1972, he and five other prisoners successfully escaped. He then started robbing banks in Montreal (Canada), and in his typical style, he robbed two banks on the same day - he had an accomplice named Jean-Paul Masre. On September 3 of the same year, the two men's plan to assist three other prisoners who had been imprisoned in the same prison failed to escape. A week later, the pair murdered two rangers. At the end of the year, the two moved to Venezuela with their two mistresses. Masr later returned to Canada.