Paris Police Capture Suspects in Daring $102 Million Louvre Jewel Heist

TDT | Manama

Email : editor@newsofbahrain.com

French authorities have arrested two men suspected of carrying out the audacious daylight robbery at the Louvre Museum — a theft that saw crown jewels worth an estimated $102 million vanish in mere minutes.

According to Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, the arrests were made late Saturday following an intensive manhunt that mobilized over a hundred investigators. One suspect was apprehended at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, moments before boarding a flight to Algeria. The second was detained shortly after in the Paris region, officials confirmed. Both are being held on charges of organized theft and criminal conspiracy.

The heist, which unfolded on October 19, stunned the world with its precision and boldness. Using a stolen movers’ truck, the robbers extended a ladder to reach a first-floor gallery of the iconic museum. Armed with cutting tools, they sliced through barriers, seizing eight priceless pieces — including an emerald-and-diamond necklace once gifted by Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife, Empress Marie-Louise.

As they fled down the ladder and escaped on scooters, the thieves dropped a diamond-and-emerald crown, leaving investigators crucial evidence to follow. Forensic teams later discovered dozens of DNA samples and fingerprints at the scene.

The Louvre’s director has since acknowledged that the criminals exploited a security blind spot in the museum’s surveillance system — a vulnerability now under sharp scrutiny as France debates the protection of its cultural treasures.

“Thanks to public and private security cameras,” Beccuau noted, “detectives were able to trace the suspects’ movements across Paris and neighboring regions.”

The Louvre heist adds to a troubling pattern of recent thefts targeting French museums. Within a day of the Louvre break-in, another museum in eastern France reported missing gold and silver coins, while just last month, gold nuggets worth $1.5 million were stolen from Paris’s Natural History Museum — a case that led to the arrest of a Chinese national.

For now, the world watches as investigators race to recover the missing jewels — relics of France’s royal past and a symbol of art’s enduring allure in the face of modern crime.