Arrests Made Over $102m Louvre Jewel Heist as Suspects Caught Trying to Flee France

French police have arrested at least two men in connection with last week’s spectacular daylight robbery at the Louvre Museum, which saw thieves make off with eight pieces of priceless jewellery worth an estimated $102m.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on Sunday that the arrests were made late Saturday evening, with one suspect detained at Charles de Gaulle Airport as he was about to board a flight to Algeria. The second was arrested shortly after in the Paris region, according to Le Parisien.

Both men, reportedly in their 30s and originally from Seine-Saint-Denis, are known to police and are being held on suspicion of organised theft and criminal conspiracy, the AFP news agency said.

The prosecutor’s statement did not confirm whether any of the stolen jewellery, which includes an emerald and diamond necklace once gifted by Napoleon Bonaparte to Empress Marie Louise, has been recovered.

The theft on October 19 stunned France and the art world alike. According to investigators, the thieves used an extendable ladder from a moving truck to access a first-floor gallery, exploiting what staff later described as a blind spot in the museum’s external surveillance system.

In a four-minute operation, they grabbed eight pieces before dropping a crown while fleeing down the ladder and escaping on scooters.

The museum closed immediately after the incident, which its director called a “terrible failure”, and reopened only days later amid heightened security.

Prosecutor Beccuau said investigators had gathered DNA samples and fingerprints from the scene and were able to trace the suspects’ movements using both public and private surveillance footage “in Paris and surrounding regions.”

She criticised leaks to the media about the arrests, warning they could jeopardise efforts to recover the jewels and catch additional suspects still at large.

“The investigations must continue while respecting the confidentiality of the inquiry,” Beccuau said.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez praised the police for their rapid work:

“I would like to offer my warmest congratulations to the investigators who worked tirelessly as I asked them to … The investigations must continue. Let’s keep going.”

The Louvre heist is only the latest in a string of museum thefts across France. Within a day of the robbery, a museum in eastern France reported stolen gold and silver coins, while last month, thieves broke into Paris’s Natural History Museum, taking gold nuggets worth more than $1.5m.

Cultural officials have called for an urgent review of museum security standards, as the country grapples with what many see as a wave of high-profile, highly professional art crimes.