The Paris prosecutor said Wednesday that none of the French crown jewels stolen in the brazen daytime robbery of the iconic Louvre Museum had been located 10 days after the heist, and that the only two men arrested so far in connection with the crime he had partially admitted his participation in the robbery.
“I want to remain hopeful that (the jewels) will be found and can be returned to the Louvre and, more broadly, to the nation,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told reporters.
He said the two suspects in custody would be charged with robbery and criminal conspiracy after “partially admitting to the charges”.
The jewelry dates back hundreds of years and is considered national treasures with an estimated worth about 102 million dollars. Experts have told CBS News that the elaborate pieces of jewelry may have already broken down into their components, greatly diminishing their value, and may never be found.
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At least four people in total were seen on security camera video taking part in the Oct. 19 robbery, and Beccuau said at a news conference in the French capital on Wednesday afternoon that his office could not rule out that the culprits were part of a larger criminal gang.
Dozens of detectives have been on the trail of the four thieves, who used a lift and cutting equipment to break into a first-floor gallery of the world-renowned museum and then fled with the jewels.
But few details have emerged so far about how investigators managed to track down the culprits, some of whom were wearing balaclavas and reflective vests.
The two men who were arrested on Saturday in connection with the robbery could only be held until Wednesday evening without being formally charged under French judicial rules, and Beccuau said they would be brought before magistrates with a view to “charging them with organized robbery, which carries a prison sentence of 15 years”, as well as criminal conspiracy, punishable by 10 years.
A source close to the case said this weekend that the men in their 30s were known to police for committing burglaries, and Beccuau said they were believed to be the ones who actually broke into the museum gallery, based in part on DNA evidence.
The two men came from Seine-Saint-Denis, a region outside Paris, and one was arrested as he was about to board a plane to Algeria, said the source, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
After media reported the arrests, Beccuau claimed that authorities had “made arrests on Saturday afternoon” and confirmed that “one of the arrested men was about to leave the country” from the capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport.
