Two Arrested in €88M Louvre Jewel Heist: Daring Museum Robbery Unravels with Forensic Breakthroughs

Two men have been held by French police in connection with the daylight €88m diamond heist in the Louvre Museum in the French capital Paris. The two, both in their 30s and from Seine-Saint-Denis suburb, were arrested on Saturday evening—one at Charles de Gaulle Airport while attempting to flee the country, purportedly to Algeria, and the other shortly afterwards within the Paris metropolitan region.

The robbery, orchestrated last Sunday morning, had a crew of four men arrive at the museum in a hijacked furniture removal van with a lift. Two of the robbers, masquerading as maintenance workers with high-visibility jackets, used the lift to make their way up to the first-floor Apollo Gallery. They broke an open window and used disc cutters to reach display cases, inside for less than four minutes before they sped away on motorbikes supplied by their cohorts.

Among these plundered goods were eight precious items, including a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon I had given to Marie Louise and a diadem set with 212 pearls and nearly 2,000 diamonds belonging to Empress Eugénie. One of the gems was misplaced on exiting but the rest remain missing.

Police singled out the suspects from forensic analysis of items abandoned on the scene, such as a helmet, angle grinders, and hi-vis vest. Over 150 DNA samples and fingerprints are being processed. Police have been hopeful to recover the stolen treasures as well as apprehend the remaining suspects.

The arrests followed fresh examination of museum security practices and inquiry into how it was possible for such a high-profile theft to occur during daylight hours at the world's most visited museum.