Five more people have been arrested in connection with the theft of the crown jewels from the Louvre, French prosecutors confirmed on Thursday.
The group includes one of the alleged robbers, who authorities say was identified with DNA evidence collected at the scene.
A four-person team ransacked the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery in broad daylight on October 19 after breaking in through a broken window and fleeing with $102 million worth of jewelry.
Laure Beccuau, the lead prosecutor in the case, told RTL radio that finding the suspect linked to the DNA was “one of the investigators’ objectives; we had him in our sights,” she said, adding that “other detainees could inform us about how the events unfolded.”
She did not reveal their identities or provide any additional details.
The thieves made off with a diamond and emerald necklace that Napoleon Bonaparte gave to Empress Marie Louise as a wedding gift, as well as crown jewels linked to 19th-century queens Marie Amélie and Hortensia, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara.
Separate operations in Paris and the adjacent Seine-Saint-Denis area have led to a total of seven arrests in connection with the heist.
However, the whereabouts of the jewels are unknown, except for one relic that has turned up: Eugénie’s crown, damaged but recoverable, which the suspects dropped during their escape.
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Police made the first two arrests in the case on Saturday, according to French media, including a man who was preparing to leave France from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
Police officers work inside the Louvre museum, Sunday, October 19, 2025, in Paris.
AP Photo / Thibault Camus
It took the thieves, who used a lifting basket to scale the building’s exterior walls, less than eight minutes to enter the world’s most visited museum, a feat the museum’s director called a “terrible failure.”
Thieves stole the lifting basket used to reach the upper floors of the building nine days before the breach occurred.
Security footage shows the crew ascending to the Apollo Gallery window at 9:30 a.m. on the day of the raid. By 9:38, the suspects were gone, carrying the loot, as they sped away on scooters.
Only the “almost simultaneous” arrival of police and museum security prevented the thieves from burning down the elevator, which in turn preserved crucial evidence, the prosecutor said before reiterating her appeal to the remaining suspects, saying: “These jewels now, of course, cannot be sold… There is still time to return them.”
Experts warn that gold could be melted down and precious stones re-cut to erase their past, which some visitors to the Louvre say would leave an indelible stain on French history.
“It’s important for our heritage…we wonder how this could happen, but it was important that the boys were captured,” Freddy Jacquemet told The Associated Press.
“I think the main thing now is whether they can recover the jewelry,” added Diana Ramírez. “That’s what really matters.”
According to investigators, there is no evidence of insider help at this time; However, they do not rule out a broader network beyond the four suspects captured by security cameras.
After a brief period of closure, the Louvre reopened on October 22.
– with files from The Associated Press
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