French prosecutors say recovering $102 million in stolen imperial jewellery from the Louvre remains the top priority, three months after the brazen robbery.
PARIS: French investigators remain determined to find the imperial jewels stolen from the Louvre in October.
Top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told AFP this week that the case remains a top priority almost three months after the brazen heist.
“Our main objective is still to recover the jewellery,” she said.
Police believe they have arrested all four thieves who carried out the October 19 robbery.
The thieves made off with jewellery worth an estimated $102 million from the world-famous museum.
“The interrogations have not produced any new investigative elements,” Beccuau added.
On the Sunday morning, thieves parked a mover’s truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery.
Two thieves hoisted themselves up using a furniture lift, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut glass display booths.
The other two thieves waited below before all four fled on high-powered motor scooters.
They dropped a diamond-and-emerald crown in their hurry during the escape.
Eight other items of jewellery remain at large, including an emerald-and-diamond necklace from Napoleon I.
Beccuau said investigators were keeping an open mind as to where the loot might be.
“We don’t have any signals indicating that the jewellery is likely to have crossed the border,” she stated.
She added that “anything is possible” regarding the jewels’ location.
Detectives are benefitting from contacts with intermediaries in the international art world.
“They have ways of receiving warning signals about networks of receivers of stolen goods, including abroad,” the prosecutor explained.
Anyone coming forward to hand over the jewels could see it considered as “active repentance”.
This could be taken into consideration later during a trial, according to Beccuau.
A fifth suspect, a 38-year-old woman, has been charged with being an accomplice.
She is the partner of one of the male suspects and was released under judicial supervision.
Investigators still have no idea if someone ordered the theft.
“It’s a hypothesis under consideration, but it cannot be asserted as more certain than any other,” Beccuau said.
She emphasised that detectives refuse to have any preconceived notions about the theft’s motives.
Beccuau affirmed the resolve of detectives and investigating magistrates on the case.
“We haven’t said our last word. It will take as long as it takes,” she concluded.
