The recent brazen jewellery heist at the Louvre was carried out by a local group of “petty criminals” rather than a professional gang, Paris’s prosecutor Laure Beccuau said yesterday (2 November).
Two suspects were charged on Saturday, bringing the total so far to four. Three men, all in their thirties and with hefty criminal records, stand accused of gang fraud and criminal association. A 38-year old woman, meanwhile, is charged with “complicity”. A reporter for AFP said the woman tearfully denied any involvement in the theft in a hearing with a judge. According to legal sources, her case may be reassessed as a result of her declarations.
More than €88m worth of jewels were stolen from the Louvre’s Apollo gallery on 19 October, including a brooch that belonged to Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife, fitted with 2,438 diamond, and a royal necklace comprising 32 emeralds and 1,138 diamonds, with matching earrings.
All four suspects charged so far are from Seine-Saint-Denis, a district north of Paris, Beccuau said on the radio station France Info. One is due to appear in court this Wednesday for damage caused in a local police precinct while he was under arrest in another case. Two had already been convicted previously for more than ten robbery and traffic offences, including a theft they committed together.
“It is a type of behaviour we do not usually associate with [high-level] organised criminality”, said Beccuau. He added, however: “Nowadays we are seeing profiles of people unconnected with [such] networks, who can suddenly rise to commit major crimes”.
The fourth member of the group that was on the ground for the Louvre heist is still at large and police are still looking for possible accomplices who could have stolen the truck and other vehicles used by the thieves, Beccuau said. Three persons arrested last Wednesday were released without charge. The jewels have not been found.
In the wake of the Louvre robbery, a laboratory in Vénissieux, near Lyon, that specialises in precious metals was raided last Thursday by men armed with kalashnikovs and explosives. They blew out two security windows, injuring five employees, before grabbing golden ingots. They were already under surveillance for another crime, so five men and a woman were soon arrested, police seizing military grade weapons, explosives and €12m of stolen gold, according to the local prefect.
The thefts also follow several other jewellery and gold thefts in museums across France over the past year.
