Nice, France - Two gravediggers and two hearse drivers on France's Cote d'Azur near Nice found a lucrative sideline in plucking gold teeth from skeletons and selling them to jewellers to turn into rings and pendants, police said.

The four men targeted two of the largest cemeteries in the Mediterranean town of Nice, raiding graves and tombs no longer paid for by relatives of the dead for anything of value, including gold fillings or gold teeth.

One of the hearse drivers was carrying a gold tooth at the time of his arrest, and at the home of another of the men police found a quantity of gold and jewellery, police said.