Suspects arrested over theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum
Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor says, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the word.
The prosecutor said on Sunday that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from 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.
The bow brooch worn by Empress Eugénie, are on display at the Louvre Museum on October 21, 2023 in Paris, France. (VCG via Getty Images)
Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at €88 million euros ($157 million) in a weekend heist at the world’s most visited museum — a crime that has shocked the world.
French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled last Sunday morning. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure”.
Beccuau said investigators from the anti-gang brigade made the arrests.
She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of more than 100 investigators “mobilised 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”.
Police officers work by a basket lift used by thieves Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 at the Louvre museum in Paris (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)
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.
Empress Eugénie’s crown is displayed at the Apollo Gallery in the Louvre museum in Paris on January 14, 2020.
One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.
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