Four suspects who have been charged and remanded in custody following a are considered more petty thieves than criminal masterminds, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday.
Three of those who have been arrested are suspected of being part of the crew who stole historical jewels worth up to $102 million (€88 million) from the Paris museum last month, with the fourth a girlfriend of one of the robbers.
The final member of the heist team remains at large along with the jewels.
“This is not quite everyday delinquency but it is a type of delinquency that we do not generally associate with the upper echelons of organised crime,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told FranceInfo radio.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told French daily Le Parisien that he believed the one suspect still on the run was probably the organizer of the heist.
Louvre heist suspects were locals
On Sunday, October 19, two men parked a movers’ lift outside the Louvre, rode up to the second story, smashed a window.
They cracked open display cases with angle grinders, and then fled on the back of scooters driven by two accomplices in a heist lasting less than seven minutes.
During the interview, Beccuau noted the apparent “closeness” of the suspects. Two of them were convicted in 2015 in the same theft case and all of those arrested are based in Paris’ northern suburbs.
“These are clearly local people. They all live more or less in Seine-Saint-Denis,” she said, referring to a low-income area north of Paris.
Speculation that the robbers were amateurs arose after they dropped the most precious of the jewels — Empress Eugenie’s crown, made of gold, emeralds and diamonds — and left tools, a glove and other items at the scene after failing to set fire to the movers’ truck before fleeing.
Some suspects had previous criminal past
One week after the theft, police .
They were a 34-year-old Algerian who has lived in France since 2010 and a 39-year-old already under judicial supervision for aggravated theft.
At the time of their arrest, Beccuau said they had “partially admitted” their involvement.
, a 37-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, were arrested on October 29 and charged on November 1.
Beccuau said the and he had a record of 11 criminal convictions for a range of offenses, including aggravated theft.
She added that he was in a relationship with the 38-year-old woman, who was arrested with him and that they have children together.
Both suspects deny any involvement in the heist, with BFM television reporting that the woman broke down in tears when she heard she would remain in custody.
“I am afraid for my children, and for myself, I am afraid,” the woman was alleged to have cried.
Her lawyer, Adrien Sorrentino, told BFM she denied all charges and that he would consider appealing her detention.
Edited by Sean Sinico
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