You could also get a plausible explanation if you make the three employees drug-addled miscreants and the man with the glasses a vulnerable woman carrying and displaying large amounts of cash and the setting a back alley in Dubai.

This story is strange precisely because it is not a scenario where an explanation springs to mind. People are known to be petty and cruel to the point of assault, but people who are employees of a company like McDonald's in a city like Paris are not.