Five additional suspects were arrested in connection with the October robbery at the Louvre that saw crown jewels worth an estimated €88m stolen, Paris’s public prosecutor said, though the gems remain missing. Laure Beccuau said the new arrests took place on Wednesday evening across Paris and the neighbouring Seine-Saint-Denis department, but added they had not led investigators to the missing items.
Beccuau told RTL radio that one of those detained is of particular interest: investigators have found DNA traces linking him to the break-in. The other four arrestees, she said, may be able to provide information about how the heist was organised and executed.
The arrests follow the detention of two men on Saturday night who have “partially admitted” roles in the raid, Beccuau said at a media briefing. Prosecutors plan to charge them with organised theft, which carries up to 15 years in prison, and criminal conspiracy, punishable by up to 10 years.
Investigators say the raid was carried out by a four-man team who arrived at the world’s most visited museum around 9.30am on 19 October in a stolen furniture-removal truck fitted with an extending ladder and bucket lift. Two of the men climbed to the first-floor Apollo gallery while the other two waited below. Wearing high-visibility vests to look like maintenance workers, the pair smashed an unsecured window, used disc cutters to open two glass display cases and took several pieces before descending and fleeing on motorbikes.
The entire operation lasted under seven minutes; the two men inside the gallery spent 3 minutes 58 seconds there. They dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown during the escape but made off with eight heavily gem-encrusted items, including an emerald-and-diamond necklace given by Napoleon I to Marie Louise and a diadem once owned by Empress Eugénie, set with 212 pearls and nearly 2,000 diamonds.
Beccuau said DNA matching the two men arrested on Saturday was found on a display case and on a getaway scooter. One of those suspects, an Algerian national aged 34 who has lived in France since 2010, was reportedly stopped at Charles de Gaulle airport as he tried to board a flight to Algeria and is known to police for traffic offences. The other, 39, from Aubervilliers, has prior convictions for burglary.
Authorities have not ruled out that more people were involved in the theft, but so far officials say there is no evidence of inside assistance. The search for the stolen jewels continues.
