Khaberni - Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau stated on Sunday that last month's bold daylight robbery of historic jewelry worth $102 million from the Louvre museum in Paris was perpetrated by young criminals, not professionals from the world of organized crime.
Two weeks ago on a Sunday morning, two men stopped a truck with a furniture lift outside the Louvre museum, ascended to the second floor, smashed a window, opened the display cabinets, and then fled on motorcycles driven by two of their accomplices in a heist that lasted less than seven minutes.
The authorities say that three of the four suspects are now believed to be in custody, and the jewelry is still missing.
They were described not as professional gangsters like those in Ocean's Eleven, but as young criminals from the impoverished northern suburbs of Paris.
Beccuau told French Info radio, "This is not an ordinary everyday crime... but it's a type of delinquency we generally don't associate with seasoned organized crime categories."
Beccuau added, "It's clear they are locals. All of them live, in one way or another, in the Seine-Saint-Denis area," referring to a poor area north of Paris.
French media speculated that the thieves were amateurs; as they dropped the most precious jewels, the crown of Empress Eugenie made of gold, emerald, and diamonds, during their escape and left the tools and other objects at the scene, and failed to set fire to the truck before fleeing.
A week after the incident, the police arrested two men suspected of having broken into the Louvre museum, one a 34-year-old Algerian who has been living in France since 2010 and was arrested by the police while trying to board a plane to Algeria, and a 39-year-old man already under judicial surveillance for committing serious theft crimes.
Two other suspects, a 37-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, were arrested on October 29th and were charged yesterday, Saturday.
Beccuau said that the 37-year-old man is believed to have been among the four who committed the robbery, based on DNA found in the transport truck.
In response to a question about whether the authorities believe that three of the four thieves are now in custody, Beccuau said, "At least one person has not yet been arrested." She did not rule out the existence of other accomplices.
