PARIS — The prosecutor investigating the spectacular heist at the Louvre Museum 10 days ago said Wednesday that two suspects already under arrest have “partially” admitted involvement in the crime.
Laure Beccuau said that two men detained over the weekend were suspected of being the perpetrators who smashed a window and grabbed an estimated €88 million worth of jewelry once belonging to members of France’s royal and imperial families before fleeing on scooters.
The suspects, who were identified by DNA traces left on an abandoned scooter and on the window they allegedly broke, are in their 30s and hail from the northeast Parisian suburb of Aubervilliers, Beccuau told reporters.
One is an Algerian man who had booked a one-way ticket back to his home country. He was arrested at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport on Saturday.
The other is a French national who had already been sentenced for theft in 2008 and 2014 and is set to be tried in November in a third case. He was arrested at home, Beccuau said.
Formal charges are expected to be unveiled later Wednesday, a justice ministry official said. They could be charged with organized theft, a crime which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.
Beccuau said investigators had confirmed that at least four perpetrators had taken part in the scheme, but that more participants may be involved, including the possibility that crime took place at a buyer’s behest.
She added that the stolen jewelry had not yet been retrieved, but that she “wanted to remain hopeful that they will be found.”
The brazen daylight robbery at the world’s most-visited museum drew global attention and quickly turned political in France, with strong reactions notably from far-right politicians. The president of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally, Jordan Bardella, called the incident a “humiliation” and the result of a “breakdown of the state.”
Culture Minister Rachida Dati and Louvre President Laurence des Cars came under fire after the break-in, with critics accusing them of failing to allocate sufficient resources to museum security — though concerns about the Louvre’s decaying infrastructure have been brewing for years.
Dati told lawmakers in the French Senate’s cultural committee on Tuesday that “security failures had existed” and pledged an additional €80 million to install more surveillance cameras in the Louvre.
This story has been updated.
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