Paris police have arrested five more suspects linked to the Louvre heist, bringing the total number of arrests to seven, Paris Public Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said. Their identities have not been made public.
Beccuau told RTL on Thursday that one of the newly detained suspects was identified by DNA found at the scene: “He was one of the objectives of the investigators. We had him in our sights.”
The arrests, carried out late Wednesday across Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis, follow the earlier detention of two men in Aubervilliers who “partially admitted” to organised theft and criminal conspiracy. The pair — aged 34 and 39 — face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
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The Louvre heist took place on October 19, when thieves entered the Apollo Gallery through an upstairs window and stole eight pieces of 19th-century jewellery in under four minutes. The stolen collection, worth an estimated €88 million ($102 million), included tiaras, necklaces, and earrings once owned by the wives of Napoleon I and Napoleon III.
Louvre Director Laurence des Cars later described the theft as a “terrible failure” in security operations, telling the French Senate that the museum “did not detect the arrival of the thieves soon enough.”