Explosive Arrests Made in Daring Paris Louvre Crown Jewels Heist

PARIS – Authorities have apprehended suspects linked to the daring theft of crown jewels from the renowned Louvre Museum in Paris, as announced by the Paris prosecutor on Sunday. This arrest follows a week after the audacious heist that shocked the global community.

According to the prosecutor, the arrests were made on Saturday evening, with one suspect caught while attempting to flee the country via Roissy Airport.

Reports from French media outlets BFM TV and Le Parisien indicated that two individuals were detained. However, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not specify the exact number of arrests or confirm whether the stolen jewels had been recovered.

The thieves executed their plan in under eight minutes, seizing jewels worth 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. Officials detailed how the perpetrators scaled the Louvre’s façade using a basket lift, forced entry through a window, shattered display cases, and made a swift escape. The museum’s director described the incident as a “terrible failure.”

Beccuau revealed that a specialized police unit focused on armed robberies, major burglaries, and art thefts was responsible for the arrests. She expressed concern over the premature release of information, warning that it might impede the efforts of the more than 100 investigators working to retrieve the jewels and capture all those involved. More information is expected to be disclosed once the suspects’ period of custody concludes.

French Interior minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”

The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.