Nearly three months after a high-profile robbery at the Louvre Museum, French investigators are still focused on their primary objective: recovering the imperial jewels valued at an estimated $102 million, according to Paris’s top prosecutor, Laure Beccuau.
In a statement to AFP, Beccuau confirmed that while police have arrested the four individuals believed to have carried out the theft on October 19, interrogations have yielded no new information regarding the location of the stolen items. “Our main objective is still to recover the jewellery,” she emphasized.
The brazen daylight robbery involved two thieves using a furniture lift to access the Apollo Gallery, which houses the French crown jewels. After breaking a window, they used angle grinders to open display cases while two accomplices waited below. The group escaped on high-powered motor scooters.
While one diamond-and-emerald crown was dropped during the escape, eight other significant pieces remain missing. Among them is an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gifted to his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise.
Investigators are keeping all possibilities open regarding the whereabouts of the loot, with Beccuau stating there are no specific signals indicating the jewels have left France. She noted that detectives are leveraging contacts within the international art world to monitor networks that trade in stolen goods.
A fifth suspect, the partner of one of the accused men, has been charged as an accomplice and released under judicial supervision. Authorities have not yet determined if the theft was commissioned by a third party, and the prosecutor affirmed their resolve to continue the investigation for “as long as it takes.”
