The heist of crown jewels worth $102 million from the Louvre museum in Paris last month was carried out by a gang of petty criminals, rather than professionals from the world of organized crime, the Paris prosecutor said Sunday.
Three out of the four suspected thieves are now believed to be in custody, the authorities have said, while one member of the gang remains at large, along with the stolen treasures. The girlfriend of one of the suspected gang members has also been charged with complicity in organized theft and criminal conspiracy.
On the morning of Oct. 19, two of the gang parked a stolen truck with a basket lift outside the Apollo gallery of the Louvre, rode up to the second story, smashed through a window, and cracked open display cases with angle grinders, before fleeing on the back of high-powered scooters driven by two accomplices.
The broad-daylight robbery took place while the museum was open to the public at 9.30 a.m. on a Sunday, and was completed in less than eight minutes, from pulling up to dashing away.
Under French law, authorities do not generally name suspects before conviction, with the presumption of innocence taken seriously due to privacy and defamation laws.
Despite widespread speculation that a robbery of this scope had to have been carried out by an organized, high-level crime gang, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told Franceinfo radio that this does not appear to have been the case.
People walk near the glass Pyramid of the Louvre museum after it was announced that French police had arrested more suspects linked to the theft of treasures from the museum's Galerie d'Apollon (Apollo gallery), in Paris, France, on Oct. 30, 2025. Abdul Saboor/Reuters
Not ‘Upper Echelons’ of Crime
“This is not quite everyday delinquency ... but it is a type of delinquency that we do not generally associate with the upper echelons of organized crime,” she said.Beccuau said the profiles of the individuals arrested so far are not typical of the organized crime professionals often associated with complex operations.
“These are clearly local people. They all live more or less in Seine-Saint-Denis,” she said, referring to a predominantly working-class district just north of Paris.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told Le Parisien newspaper that he believed the one suspect still on the run was most likely the organizer of the heist.
Crown of Empress Eugénie, 1855, by Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier. Gold, diamond, emerald, leather; 5 1/8 inches by 5 9/10 inches. Stéphane Maréchalle/ Musée du Louvre
Hallmarks of Amateurs
French media have speculated that the heist, while daring, had the hallmarks of amateurs, as the thieves dropped the most valuable of the jewels—Empress Eugenie’s diamond and emerald-covered gold crown—as they fled the scene, leaving behind their tools, a glove, and other items.Investigators recovered 150 DNA and other trace samples from the scene, and the complex, fast-moving investigation has trawled over hours of CCTV footage from in and around Paris as well as from around the museum itself.
The men also failed in their attempt to set fire to the truck, normally used for house moves, before fleeing.
A week after the raid that stunned the country, police arrested two men suspected of being the pair who broke into the gallery—a 34-year-old who was stopped by police as he tried to board a flight to his native Algeria, and a 39-year-old already known to the police for aggravated theft.
The younger of the two men has lived in France since 2010 and has driving convictions, the authorities said.
Both of these men have been charged with theft and conspiracy after they “partially admitted” their involvement, it was announced last week.
Two further suspects, a 37-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman, were arrested on Oct. 29, along with three other people, before being charged on Saturday.
The 37-year-old man is believed to have been part of the four-man gang that carried out the heist, based on DNA found in the truck, Beccuau said.
He has a record of 11 criminal convictions for a range of offences, including aggravated theft and an attempt to break into an automated teller machine, the prosecutor said.
French police officers stand next to an extendable ladder used by the thieves to enter the Louvre museum in Paris on Oct. 19, 2025. Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
Previous Accomplices
This man’s partner is the 38-year-old woman, and the couple has children together, Beccuau said, adding that he and one of the two previously charged men had been convicted of the same robbery in 2015.Traces of the woman’s DNA were found in the movers’ truck, but Beccuau said these seemed to have been transferred into the vehicle by a person or object.
Both deny involvement in the heist, the prosecutor’s office said Saturday.
The woman’s lawyer, Adrien Sorrentino, told BFM TV she denied all charges and that he would consider appealing her detention.
According to BFM, the woman broke down in tears when she heard she would remain in custody, saying, “I am afraid for my children, and for myself. I am afraid.”
When asked to clarify whether authorities believed that three of the four thieves were now under arrest, Beccuau said that “at least one person is still missing.”
The prosecutor, who is the only one in authority permitted to give official updates on the investigation, did not rule out there being further accomplices.
It was confirmed Saturday that three other people who were arrested along with the couple on Oct. 29 have been released without being charged.
