Two men alleged to have participated in the spectacular heist at the Louvre museum earlier this month have “partially admitted” to the jewel theft and face 15 years in prison if found guilty of the crime, the Paris prosecutor in charge of the case said on Wednesday.
Some 100 investigators have been working on solving the sensational case since the morning of Sunday, Oct. 19, when two masked thieves broke into the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery and made off with some of the nation’s crown jewels, a brazen robbery that has shocked France.
Police are still searching for two other people who helped the thieves speed away on the backs of their high-powered motor scooters. They are also still searching for the stolen jewels, themselves.
“The jewels are not yet in our possession as I speak to you,” Laure Beccuau, the prosecutor, said at a brief news conference. “I want to hold onto the hope that they will be found and can be returned to the Louvre Museum and, more broadly, to the nation.”
The two men now in custody are suspected to have been at the heart of the crime — riding a truck-mounted electric ladder up to a second floor gallery of the Louvre museum, where they used disc grinders to break through a reinforced glass window to gain entry and then cut into two display cases.
After less than four minutes in the room, they made off with eight pieces of heritage jewelry, including a diamond and emerald necklace that Napoleon gave to his second wife for their wedding more than 200 years ago.
Both men were arrested last Saturday evening, when one was seen at the Charles de Gaulle airport with a one-way ticket to Algeria. He is a 34-year-old Algerian native who has lived in France since 2010 and has worked as a garbage collector and delivery person. He has a criminal record for theft, Ms. Beccuau said
The second suspect was arrested soon after near his home in Aubervilliers, a suburb of Paris. A driver and deliverer, he is a 39-year-old French native who also has a criminal record for aggravated theft and is facing another theft charge that has yet to go to court.
Both men were traced through DNA samples left on objects at the scene or later found by police, including one of the motor scooters and the window they broke to get into the museum, Ms. Beccuau said.
They are expected to be charged Wednesday evening with thefts committed by an organized gang and criminal association.
In their investigation, police have collected 189 pieces of evidence, processed 150 forensic samples, and spoken to about 20 witnesses, she said.
Catherine Porter is an international reporter for The Times, covering France. She is based in Paris.
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