One of the five detained is suspected of being part of the four-man gang who carried out the robbery that stunned France, with two men already charged.
Five more arrests have been made in the hunt for the crown jewel thieves of the Louvre museum, after two men were charged, the French authorities announced on Thursday.
One of the five includes a man identified by DNA as one of the suspected robbers, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said, as the complex, high-speed investigation spread across the French capital and into the suburbs.
A total of seven individuals have been arrested in separate, late-night operations in Paris and nearby Seine-Saint-Denis, with two men arrested on Saturday night having “partially” admitted to their role in the broad-daylight heist on Oct. 19.
Beccuau told RTL radio that one of the five latest detainees is suspected of being part of the four-man team who carried out the smash-and-grab of the Napoleonic treasures from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery at around 9:30 a.m., half an hour after the museum opened to the public.
The prosecutor said the suspect whose DNA is linked to the scene of the crime was “one of the objectives of the investigators—we had him in our sights.”
She added that the other four people taken into custody “may be able to inform us about how the events unfolded,” but did not release details of their relationship to the man suspected of being one of the four-man gang of thieves.
Jewels Remain Unrecovered
The loot remains unrecovered, amid fears the precious pieces might have already been dismantled and broken down, to be made into unrecognizable items for sale on the regular jewelry and gemstones market.
The stolen pieces—valued at 88 million euros ($102 million), but described as priceless in terms of their cultural significance—include crown jewels worn by 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and a pearl-and-diamond tiara that belonged to Eugénie de Montijo, the wife of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte.
Authorities, including French police and the museum management, have acknowledged there were serious gaps in security at the Louvre, which has been the target of numerous thefts in the past, including the famed one-man heist of the Mona Lisa in 1911.
Former bank robber David Desclos, who now works as a stand-up comedian, said that in 2020, he had warned the Louvre of obvious vulnerabilities in the layout of the Apollo Gallery after they invited him onto the museum’s in-house podcast to discuss previous heists.
The audacious theft sent shockwaves across France and led to questions for politicians and the police about how the country guards its national treasures.
