Four suspects who have been charged and remanded in custody after a robbery at the Louvre are considered more petty thieves than criminal masterminds, a Paris prosecutor said on Sunday.
Three of those arrested are suspected of being part of the gang that stole up to $102 million (€88 million) of historic jewels from a Paris museum last month, and a fourth was the girlfriend of one of the robbers.
The last member of the robbery team is absconding with the jewels.
“It’s not exactly an everyday crime, but it’s a type of crime that we don’t usually associate with the upper echelons of organized crime,” Paris prosecutor Laure Becu told FranceInfo radio.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told the French daily le parisien They believe a suspect who is still on the run was possibly the organizer of the robbery.
The Louvre means the suspects were local
On Sunday, October 19, two men parked a movers’ elevator outside the Louvre, reached the second floor, and broke a window.
They broke display cases open with an angle grinder, and then fled on the back of a scooter driven by two accomplices in a robbery that lasted less than seven minutes.
During the interview, Becuau noted the apparent “closeness” of the suspects. Two of them were convicted in the same theft case in 2015 and all those arrested are based in the northern suburbs of Paris.
“These are obviously local people. They all live more or less in Seine-Saint-Denis,” he said, referring to a low-income area north of Paris.
Speculation was raised that the robbers were novices after they failed to set fire to the movers’ truck before fleeing, dropping the most precious jewels – Empress Eugenie’s tiara, made of gold, emeralds and diamonds – and leaving tools, a glove and other items at the scene.
Some suspects have prior criminal history
A week after the theft, police arrested two men suspected of breaking into the Louvre.
They were a 34-year-old Algerian who had been living in France since 2010 and a 39-year-old man already under judicial surveillance for aggravated theft.
At the time of his arrest, Becuau said he “partially admitted” his involvement.
Two further suspects, a 37-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, were arrested on 29 October and charged on 1 November.
Becu said the 37-year-old man’s DNA was found in a moving truck and he had a record of 11 criminal convictions for crimes including aggravated burglary.
He said he was in a relationship with the 38-year-old woman he was arrested with and they had children.
Both suspects deny any involvement in the robbery, with BFM television reporting that the woman began crying when she heard she would remain in custody.
“I’m scared for my children, and for myself too, I’m scared,” the woman reportedly cried.
Her lawyer, Adrian Sorrentino, told BFM that she denied all charges and would consider appealing her detention.
Edited by Shawn Sinico