Two suspects have been arrested as part of an investigation into last week’s daylight Louvre heist, Paris’s public prosecutor’s office announced on Sunday, October 26.
The arrests were made on Saturday evening, prosecutor Laure Beccau said in a statement, adding that 100 investigators are working on the case.
The French newspaper Le Monde reported that one of the suspects had been attempting to board a flight to Algeria. The other apprehended suspect was planning to travel to Mali, according to the publication Paris Match. Hyperallergic has contacted the prosecutor’s office for comment on these reported details.
The arrested suspects are both men in their 30s with a record of jewelry theft, a French police official told NBC News. The official added that DNA samples collected from the crime scene were used to make the arrests.
Four individuals broke into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon last week, making off with eight items of “inestimable heritage and historical value,” including an emerald set gifted by Napoleon to his second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria. In total, the estimated value of the stolen jewels is €88 million (~$102 million). Experts worry that the items might be dismantled or melted down to be sold piecemeal.
In a tense hearing before the French Senate last week, Louvre Director Laurence des Cars admitted to catastrophic security failures, including that an exterior video surveillance camera had been facing away from where the thieves entered the museum.
As she faces intense scrutiny over the security failures that led to the historic heist, des Cars received support this morning from an international group of 57 museum leaders and curators. In an open letter they published in Le Monde, they wrote that des Cars’s “leadership and dedication to the museum’s mission, in particular as unifying spaces capable of mending our profoundly fractured societies, are deeply respected and admired.” Signatories include Museum of Modern Art Director Christophe Cherix, the Metropolitan Museum of Art Director Max Hollein, Tate Museum Director Maria Balshaw, and National Gallery of Art Director Kaywin Feldman. Other museum leaders represented institutions in Canada, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Mexico.
“Museums are not strongholds nor are they secret vaults,” the letter continues. “Their essence while creating the safest environment for art and its audiences lies in their openness and accessibility.”
The Louvre has not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s request for comment.
