5 extra folks have been arrested in reference to the crown jewels heist at the Louvre, French prosecutors confirmed on Thursday.
Included within the group is without doubt one of the suspected robbers, who authorities say was recognized with DNA proof collected from the scene.
A four-person staff ransacked the Louvre‘s Apollo Gallery in broad daylight on Oct. 19 after getting into via a damaged window and operating away with $102 million value of jewelry.
Laure Beccuau, the lead prosecutor within the case, instructed RTL radio that discovering the DNA-linked suspect was “one of many aims of the investigators — we had him in our sights,” she mentioned, including that “others taken into custody might be able to inform us about how the occasions unfolded.”
She didn’t disclose their identities or present any extra particulars.
The thieves made off with a diamond-and-emerald necklace that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to Empress Marie Louise as a marriage reward, in addition to crown jewels tied to Nineteenth-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
Separate operations in Paris and the adjoining Seine-Saint-Denis have resulted in a complete of seven arrests in reference to the heist.
Nonetheless, the whereabouts of the jewels stay unknown, apart from one relic that has surfaced — Eugénie’s crown, broken however salvageable, which suspects dropped throughout their escape.
Get each day Nationwide information
Get the day’s high information, political, financial, and present affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox as soon as a day.
Police made the first two arrests within the case on Saturday, in line with French media, together with a person who was making ready to go away France from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Cops work contained in the Louvre museum, Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.
AP Picture / Thibault Camus
It took thieves — who used a basket raise to scale the constructing’s exterior partitions — lower than eight minutes to interrupt into the world’s most visited museum, a feat the museum’s director referred to as a “horrible failure.”
Thieves stole the basket raise used to succeed in the constructing’s higher flooring 9 days earlier than the breach occurred.
Safety footage reveals the crew ascending to the Apollo Gallery window at 9:30 a.m. on the day of the raid. By 9:38, the suspects had departed, carrying loot, as they sped away on scooters.
Solely the “near-simultaneous” arrival of police and museum safety stopped the thieves from burning the raise, which in flip preserved essential proof, the prosecutor mentioned earlier than reiterating her enchantment to any remaining suspects, saying, “These jewels at the moment are, in fact, unsellable.… There’s nonetheless time to offer them again.”
Consultants warn that the gold could possibly be melted down and that treasured stones could possibly be recut to erase their previous, which some Louvre guests say would depart an indelible stain on French historical past.
“It’s essential for our heritage…we surprise how this might even occur — but it surely was essential that the blokes had been caught,” Freddy Jacquemet instructed The Related Press.
“I believe the principle factor now’s whether or not they can recuperate the jewels,” Diana Ramirez added. “That’s what actually issues.”
In line with investigators, there isn’t a proof of insider assist presently; nevertheless, they don’t seem to be ruling out a wider community past the 4 suspects caught on safety cameras.
After a brief interval of closure, the Louvre reopened on Oct. 22.
— with recordsdata from The Related Press
© 2025 World Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
