Loot still not found after seven-minute operation by gang of four at world’s most visited art museum stunned the world.
Published On 25 Nov 2025
French authorities have arrested four more people in connection with last month’s daylight robbery of royal jewels worth $102m from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on Tuesday that two men aged 38 and 39 and two women aged 31 and 40 were arrested as part of the probe into the heist, which saw thieves make off with eight items, including an emerald and diamond necklace given by Napoleon I to his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise.
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All four suspects are from the Paris region, Beccuau said. Previously, four other people had been arrested and placed under formal investigation over the raid of the world’s most visited art museum, which was carried out by four people.
On October 19, two men parked a mover’s lift below the Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels. They rode up to the second storey in a bucket, smashed a window and cracked open display cases with angle grinders. They fled on the back of scooters driven by two accomplices.
All in all, the operation took less than seven minutes. Thieves dropped a jewel-encrusted crown that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped. The rest of the loot has not been found.
The four already charged over the theft are three men and a woman. This month, it emerged that one of the men, a 37-year-old, was in a couple with the woman and they have children. The couple was arrested after their DNA was found in the basket lift used during the robbery.
Beccuau said at the time that the man’s criminal record contained 11 previous convictions, most of them for theft. The first two men arrested earlier lived in the northeastern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers and were also known to the police for having committed thefts.
The heist made headlines worldwide and spotlighted museum security in France, which has seen a series of break-ins at cultural institutions.
The Louvre’s director has pledged more police and security cameras, acknowledging in an appearance before lawmakers that failings had led to the theft.
