The Paris prosecutor announced on Sunday that two individuals have been apprehended in connection with the theft of crown jewels from the renowned Louvre museum. The arrests were made by investigators on Saturday evening, with one of the suspects caught at Charles de Gaulle Airport as he was preparing to leave the country. Another suspect was detained later in the evening in the Seine-Saint-Denis suburb north of Paris.
The theft occurred on October 19 when thieves broke into the museum and made off with eight valuable pieces of jewelry valued at around $143 million Cdn. The daring robbery exposed security vulnerabilities at the world’s most-visited museum, as the perpetrators used a crane to break into an upstairs window during operating hours before fleeing on motorcycles.
The news of the heist garnered international attention and led to introspection in France about what was perceived as a national embarrassment. According to reports from Le Parisien, the two suspects, both in their 30s and originally from Seine-Saint-Denis, were already known to the French authorities. One of the suspects was reportedly planning to travel to Algeria.