On Tuesday, four more suspects were arrested in connection with the theft of the French crown jewels from the Louvre in Paris last month. One of those men, who is currently in police custody, is suspected of being the fourth member of the group who staged the heist.
The man in question was arrested yesterday in the small city of Laval, just 174 miles west of Paris. He reportedly has a criminal record and has been charged with organized theft and criminal conspiracy, according to Le Parisien. He is also believed to have connections with the other three alleged members who were previously arrested.
Additionally, three of the suspect’s relatives were taken in for questioning. “They are two men aged 38 and 39, and two women aged 31 and 40, all from the Paris region,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The three men and one woman previously charged in connection with the robbery were identified in media reports as Ayed G, Slimane K, and Abdoulaye N. One suspect’s cousin also spoke out about the theft. Of the four, one is a taxi driver and another is a delivery man and garbage collector, the latter of whom was arrested at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport while allegedly trying to flee on a one-way flight to Algeria. The other two are a man and woman who have been identified as domestic partners with two children together; the woman was released from police custody and placed under judicial supervision on Wednesday. The thieves are reported to be locals of Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris.
Beccuau, the prosecutor, previously indicated to France Info Radio, “This is not quite everyday delinquency … but it is a type of delinquency that we do not generally associate with the upper echelons of organized crime.”
On Sunday, October 19, around 9:30 a.m., robbers broke into the Parisian museum‘s Apollo Gallery using a cherry picker and an angle grinder to steal nine pieces of jewelry worth an estimated $102 million in less than eight minutes. CCTV footage captured the thieves descending from a gallery window before fleeing the area on scooters. One of the nine pieces, a crown once belonging to Empress Eugénie, was subsequently recovered outside the Louvre and is expected to undergo conservation efforts.
In a hearing with the French senate, Louvre director Laurence des Cars said that alarms functioned properly and went off during the heist. But she admitted that the museum has “very inadequate” and “outdated” security systems in place.
Though the Louvre recently rolled out a set of emergency security measures, the full extent of the recommended security changes, according to a French national audit, are “not expected to be finished until 2032.” However, some 100 surveillance cameras and anti-intrusion systems are set to be installed at the museum as part of increased security measures.
The missing jewels are listed in Interpol’s Stolen Works of Art database, but the search continues as they have yet to be recovered by authorities. In light of the heist, the Louvre has transferred the remainder of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France for safekeeping.
