Jewelry stolen from the Louvre museum in a brazen weekend heist is worth an estimated 88 million euros, or a little over $100 million, the Paris prosecutor said on Tuesday afternoon.
“This sum is indeed extremely spectacular,” the prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said in an interview with RTL radio, “but it is in no way comparable to the historical damage caused by this theft.”
On Sunday morning, burglars rode a mechanical ladder up to the second floor of the Louvre, sawed out a window and climbed inside the wing housing the Apollo Gallery. There, in a matter of minutes, they snatched eight pieces from a collection of royal jewelry and crown diamonds, including a royal sapphire necklace, a royal emerald necklace and matching earrings, and a diadem worn by Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III.
As of Tuesday, the culprits had not yet been found. But officials say they are working on the basis that the robbers are most likely members of a criminal gang, of a kind that experts say would probably be more interested in breaking down the stolen jewels for resale than for their artistic value.
Ms. Beccuau said the stolen items had been valued at 88 million euros, or around $102.1 million, by a Louvre curator. She warned it was unlikely that the burglars would be able to sell the jewels for such a large sum if they tear the pieces apart or melt them.
“So we can perhaps hope that they will think about it and not destroy the jewelry,” she told the radio station.
The pieces were not insured, which is not uncommon for state collections because of the prohibitive costs, according to France’s culture ministry. It said that “the state acts as its own insurer” when works are in their usual place of conservation, “given the cost of taking out insurance” and the fact that “the accident rate is low.”
The team investigating the heist has grown to 100 people from 60 at the start, Ms. Beccuau said in the interview.
She explained that the burglars had obtained the truck-mounted electric ladder by pretending it would be used for a move, then threatening a person who came to check. That person, who she did not name, filed a complaint with the police in a town 22 miles north of Paris. The name of the town? Amazingly, Louvres.
“A troubling coincidence,” Ms. Beccuau said.
Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.
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