Oct. 26 (UPI) — French prosecutors on Sunday announced that arrests had been made in connection with the brazen daylight heist of historic jewels worth more than $100 million from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris public prosecutor, said in a statement that the office’s anti-gang unit had made the arrests Saturday evening, but did not disclose precisely how many arrests had been made. It previously had been reported that at least four people were believed to have been involved in the heist last Sunday.
Beccuau revealed that one of the men was preparing to flee the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport when he was arrested.
The arrests had first been reported by the French newspaper Le Parisien, citing anonymous sources, before the news was confirmed by Beccuau. The prosecutor lamented that the leak that arrests had been made before authorities were ready to disclose the news.
“I deeply regret the hasty disclosure of this information by informed individuals, without consideration for the investigation,” she said in her statement.
“This revelation can only hinder the investigative efforts of the hundred or so investigators mobilized in the search for both the stolen jewelry and the perpetrators. It is too early to provide any further details.”
Beccuau said that she would provide further information to the public at the end of this phase of police custody.
A representative for the Louvre confirmed to UPI last week that several people broke in through a window in the Galerie d’Apollon, which houses many of France’s royal jewels, around 9:30 a.m. local time after the museum had already opened its doors to the public.
The thieves had posed as workers in yellow vests and used a hoist truck to break into a second-floor window of the Galerie d’Apollon and cut through the glass display cases to snatch the jewels before dashing away on motorcycles along the A6 motorway.
The theft set off alarms on the gallery’s exterior window and display cases, and museum workers present in the gallery during the theft quickly notified police, but the thieves escaped with the jewels in less than seven minutes.
Interpol later added the jewels to its Stolen Works of Art database, an international registry of cultural property stolen worldwide to aid in their recovery, the art news publication Urgent Matter reported.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez praised investigators for working tirelessly to find the men who stole the jewels.
“The investigations must continue while respecting the confidentiality of the inquiry under the authority of the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Parquet de Paris,” he said.
The heist has heightened scrutiny of security flaws faced by French institutions.
Also last week, thieves stole historic silver and gold coins from the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot museum in the town of Langres.
And French authorities announced that a Chinese woman had been charged in connection with the September theft of gold nuggets from the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris.
