Two suspects have been arrested over the theft of precious crown jewels from Paris’s Louvre museum. The Paris prosecutor’s office said one of the men had been taken into custody as he was preparing to take a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Items worth €88m (£76m; $102m) were taken from the world’s most-visited museum last Sunday, when four thieves wielding power tools broke into the building in broad daylight. France’s justice minister has conceded security protocols “failed”, leaving the country with a “terrible image”.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the arrests had been made on Saturday evening, without specifying how many people had been taken into custody. One of the suspects was preparing to travel to Algeria, police sources have told French media, while it is understood the other was going to Mali.
Specialist police can detain and question them for up to 96 hours.
According to reports in French media on Sunday, DNA found at the scene of the robbery led to the identification of one of the suspects.The gang left behind a number of items, including gloves and a high-vis jacket. It has previously been reported that they dropped a crown that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.
Two of the thieves entered by cutting through the window with power tools. They then threatened the guards, who evacuated the premises, and cut through the glass of two display cases containing jewels.
A preliminary report has revealed that one in three rooms in the area of the museum raided had no CCTV cameras, according to French media. Police say the thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside at 09:38.
