Arrests made in crown jewelry heist at Paris’ Louvre museum, prosecutor says

Multiple people were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, a Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the brazen heist at the world’s most visited museum.

The prosecutor said investigators made the arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris’ Roissy Airport.

French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.

Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at $102 million last Sunday morning.

Questions have arisen about security at the museum and whether security cameras might have failed as the thieves rode a basket lift up the Louvre’s facade, cut their way through a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

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 theft focused on the gilded Apollo Gallery, where the Crown Diamonds are displayed. Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; and Empress Eugénie’s diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch, a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble.

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

The crown jewels are priceless in historical terms, but experts have told CBS News they would still be worth millions of dollars if broken up and sold on the black market.

The jewels were not privately insured, the French Ministry of Culture stated in a press release to the daily newspaper Le Parisien. French law prohibits entities like the Louvre from insuring its property, except when part of a collection is moved or loaned to another institution, Romain Déchelette, president of France-based Serex Assurances, a fine art insurer, told CBS News.

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