A 38-year-old woman has been charged with complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy, while a 37-year-old man has been charged with organised theft and criminal conspiracy. Two people were arrested and charged early last week.
On 19 October, a gang of thieves entered the Louvre Museum and made off with eight items from France’s Crown Jewels, valued at around $156 million.
On 31 October, media reports revealed that five people had been arrested during coordinated raids, with one of the suspects believed to have been a member of the four-person team that executed the jewellery heist.
“The suspects arrived with a stolen vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Gallery of Apollo via a balcony close to the River Seine. The men used a disc cutter to crack open display cases housing the jewellery,” explains Kathryn Armstrong for BBC News.
“France's justice minister said security protocols in the Louvre - one of the world's most famous museums - "failed" in preventing the theft. It was later revealed by the Louvre's director that the only camera monitoring the Gallery of Apollo was pointing away from a balcony that the thieves climbed over to break in.
“Since the incident, security measures have been tightened around France's cultural institutions. The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France following the heist. They will now be stored in the Bank's most secure vault, 26 metres below the ground floor of its elegant headquarters in central Paris.”
Among the missing jewellery is an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Emperor Napoleon I gave to his wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds.
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