French authorities arrested four more people in the probe into October’s spectacular daylight theft of imperial jewels from the Louvre museum, the top Paris prosecutor said.
“They are two men aged 38 and 39, and two women aged 31 and 40, all from the Paris region,” Laure Beccuau said yesterday, following earlier charges against four others over the heist, AFP reported.
French media said the arrests included the last remaining alleged member of the four-person gang who broke into the museum, according to The Guardian.
Citing police sources, Le Parisien newspaper said the suspected thief had been detained by anti-gang squad officers and was being held at police headquarters. He faces charges of organised theft and criminal conspiracy.
The suspect has a criminal record and was linked to the three alleged members of the gang who had already been arrested and were under formal investigation, all of whom had ties to the Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, Le Parisien said.
On October 19, the four-person gang raided the Louvre, the world’s most-visited art museum, in broad daylight, taking just seven minutes to steal jewellery worth an estimated €88 million before fleeing on scooters.
The thieves parked a removal truck with a ladder below the museum’s Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels, ascended in a bucket, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut into glass display booths containing the treasures.
The four already charged over the theft include three men and a woman.
One of the men, a 37-year-old, was in a couple with the woman and they have children, Beccuau said earlier in November.
The couple were arrested after their DNA was found in the basket lift used during the robbery.
The man’s criminal record contained 11 previous convictions, most of them for theft, she said.
DNA analysis of items left at the scene, which included gloves, a hi-vis vest and disc cutters, led to the arrest of the pair, identified as “Ayed G” and “Abdoulaye N”, according to The Guardian.
A third man, “Slimane K”, who is suspected of having driven one of the two scooters used in the theft, was detained several days later.
One of the men arrested yesterday is thought to be the second driver and fourth member of the team.
A fifth suspect accused of helping the gang has also already been charged. France’s State auditor called the theft “a deafening wake-up call” for the “wholly inadequate pace” of security upgrades at the world’s most visited museum.
The Louvre’s management has accepted “most” of the auditor’s conclusions. An administrative inquiry into the theft highlighted a “chronic, structural underestimation of the risk of intrusion and theft” and “inadequate security”.
The first two men arrested earlier were also known to the police for having committed thefts. Both lived in the northeastern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers, according to AFP.
The Louvre thieves dropped a diamond and emerald-studded crown that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped.
But they made off with eight other items of jewellery .
The valuable items taken in the heist that remain missing are: A pearl and diamond tiara and brooch that once belonged to Empress Eugénie; the diamond and emerald necklace and matching earrings given to Empress Marie-Louise by Napoleon I; the tiara, necklace, and single earring from the sapphire set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense and the brooch famously known as the “reliquary brooch”.
The loot has still not been found.
The audacious heist made headlines worldwide and spotlighted museum security in France, which has seen a series of break-ins at cultural institutions.
Police believe the latest arrested individuals represent the final members of the original gang, which was initially thought to consist of only four people, the International Business Times reported.
With the additional four taken into custody, the prosecutors have now secured a total of eight suspects linked to the burglary.
France’s highest audit institution earlier in November said in a cutting report that the Louvre had prioritised rendering the museum more attractive, including by acquiring more artworks, at the expense of security, AFP reported.
The museum’s director Laurence des Cars has pledged more police and security cameras, acknowledging failings that led to the theft in an appearance before lawmakers.
Beccuau has said the heist was carried out by petty criminals rather than organised crime professionals, according to the BBC.
Shortly after the theft, it was revealed by des Cars that the only camera monitoring the Apollo Gallery was pointing away from a balcony the thieves climbed over to break in.
He admitted the museum had failed in its responsibilities but denied that security had been overlooked. She stated that from the time she took office in 2021 she had been warning constantly of the need for more investment.
Since the incident, security measures have been tightened around France’s cultural institutions.
The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France following the heist.
The newspaper Le Monde said yesterday that a 2018 security evaluation had clearly identified the break-in risk.
The evaluation, carried out by the jewellery company Van Cleef & Arpels, said the balcony used by the thieves was a weak point in security and could be reached by using an extendible ladder – exactly what transpired in October’s heist.
The museum did not immediately respond to AFP queries about the report by Le Monde. But the newspaper said the Louvre declared it only became aware of the 2018 security evaluation after the heist.
Adding to its current woes, the museum on November 17 announced the temporary closure of one of its galleries due to safety concerns over a ceiling.
The incident underlined the dilapidated state of some of the structures, as well as the challenges of welcoming millions of people every year in a historic building that mostly dates back to the Renaissance era.
