Suspects arrested over theft of jewels, prosecutor says

Two suspects have been arrested for stealing valuable crown jewels from the Louvre museum in Paris, according to French media.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said one of the men was taken into police custody as he prepared to take a flight from Charles de Gaulle airport.

Items worth €88 million (£76 million; $102 million) were stolen 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 admitted security protocols had “failed”, leaving the country with a “terrible image”.

The Paris prosecutor’s office indicated in a press release that the arrests took place on Saturday evening, without specifying how many people had been placed in police custody.

One of the suspects was preparing to go to Algeria, police sources told French media, while the other was going to Mali.

Specialized police can detain and question them for up to 96 hours.

According to French media on Sunday, DNA found at the scene of the theft helped identify one of the suspects.

The gang left behind a number of items including gloves and a high visibility jacket.

It was previously reported that they dropped a crown that belonged to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III.

The Paris prosecutor criticized the “premature disclosure” of information related to the case, adding that it hampered efforts to recover the jewelry and track down the thieves.

The thieves are believed to have arrived at 9:30 a.m. (08:30 GMT), shortly after the museum opened to visitors.

The suspects arrived with a vehicle-mounted mechanical elevator to access the Galerie d’Apollon via a balcony near the Seine.

Footage from the scene showed the ladder leading to a first-floor window.

Two of the thieves entered by cutting the window with power tools.

They then threatened the guards, who evacuated the premises, and broke the windows of two display cases containing jewelry.

A preliminary report found that one in three rooms in the museum area raided did not have CCTV cameras, according to French media.

French police say the thieves were inside for four minutes and fled on two scooters waiting outside at 9:38 a.m.

The museum’s director told French senators this week that the only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where they broke in was pointed at the first-floor balcony that led to the Apollo Gallery.

CCTV around the perimeter was also weak and “aging”, Laurence des Cars said, meaning staff failed to spot the gang early enough to stop the robbery.

Experts also expressed concern that the jewelry may have already been broken into hundreds of pieces.

Gold and silver can be melted down and precious stones can be cut into smaller stones that will be virtually impossible to trace, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand told the BBC.

Security measures have since been strengthened around French cultural institutions.

The Louvre transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Banque de France following the heist. They will now be stored in the Bank’s most secure vault, 26 meters below the ground floor of its elegant headquarters in the center of Paris.