Three months on, the $102 million in jewels brazenly stolen from the Louvre in Paris remain missing. While Paris police have arrested at least eight people believed to be connected to the October 19 robbery, investigators have made little progress in recovering the loot. Recently, however, officers from Paris’s Anti-Gang Brigade (BRB) identified the jewels’ last known location.
As reported by Le Parisien, the BRB traced the stolen items to an underground parking lot in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris where four of the suspects lived. Investigators were able to follow two scooters, which were used in the escape, to the garage roughly an hour after the heist. CCTV footage shows two suspects dismounting the scooters and passing the stolen jewels back and forth. Police believe the individuals captured on camera are Abdoulaye N. and Slimane K.
Abdoulaye N., a 39-year-old former security guard, is reportedly known on social media as Doudou Cross Bitume, where he often posted videos performing motorbike stunts, including on a Yamaha TMax believed to have been used in the Louvre escape. His DNA was reportedly found on display cases and other abandoned items at the scene, including gloves, a high-visibility vest, and disc cutters. Little information has been released publicly about Slimane K.
Less than an hour after the two men arrived at the garage, a van carrying two additional suspects appeared. One of them, Rachid H., is believed to have rented three parking spaces in the garage under his mother’s name, which investigators say were used to conceal the getaway vehicles. Several days later, Rachid and Slimane were seen at the garage again, leaving in a white van. It remains unclear whether the suspects removed the stolen jewels at that point or whether they had already been moved.
Investigators determined that suspects returned to the garage multiple times between October 23 and October 30. By the time authorities discovered the hideout, however, both the getaway vehicles and the jewels were gone. Like the missing treasure itself, the vehicles have yet to be recovered.
