Two More Suspects Including Woman Charged Over Louvre Heist

Thus, the number of people accused of the spectacular robbery increased to four.

The latest charges, a 38-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man, were arrested along with three others on Wednesday, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said. The other three were released pending trial.

An AFP reporter witnessed the woman burst into tears as she appeared in a Paris court, saying she was afraid for her children and herself.

He is charged with organized theft and complicity in preparation for a crime.

The judge found the arrest of the woman, who lives in La Courneuve, a northern suburb of the French capital, justified on the grounds of “risk of collusion” and “disruption of public order”.

The Paris prosecutor said the man was charged with organized theft and conspiracy to commit crime.

He said that the person was known to the judicial authorities due to previous theft crimes.

The prosecutor added that he was being held in custody until the hearing to be held in the coming days.

“Both individuals denied involvement in the incidents,” Beccuau said. he said.

– ‘Like drift nets’ –

Last month, thieves using power tools broke into the Louvre, the world’s most visited art museum, in broad daylight and stole an estimated $102 million worth of jewelry in just seven minutes.

French authorities initially announced the arrest of two male suspects in connection with the Louvre robbery, and this week prosecutors said police had arrested five more people, including a prime suspect.

Adrien Sorrentino, the detained woman’s lawyer, said that his client “strongly” denied the accusations against him.

“He’s devastated,” he told reporters.

“This is a spectacular robbery and the verdict that has just been made is spectacular: a young woman has just been taken into custody despite her presumed innocence.”

Sofia Bougrine, a lawyer for one of the people arrested this week but later released, noted the indiscriminate nature of some arrests.

“In these serious crime cases, we see that waves of arrests look more like drift networks,” Bougrine told AFP.

– Minister still ‘safe’ –

The first two men previously arrested were charged with theft and criminal conspiracy “after partially admitting to the charges,” Beccuau said earlier this week.

It is suspected that these people entered the gallery while their two accomplices waited outside.

Both lived in the suburb of Aubervilliers, northeast of Paris.

One of them was a 34-year-old Algerian national living in France, and his identity was determined from DNA traces found on one of the scooters used to escape the robbery. The second man is a 39-year-old unlicensed taxi driver.

Both of them were known to the police to have been stealing.

The first was arrested as he was about to board a plane from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport to Algeria.

The latter was captured near his home a short time later and there was no evidence he was planning to go abroad, prosecutors said.

The stolen loot is still missing.

While thieves were escaping, once upon a time, III. They dropped the crown decorated with diamonds and emeralds that belonged to Napoleon’s wife, Empress Eugenie.

The thieves escaped with eight other pieces of jewellery.

These include the emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I gifted to his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a crown with nearly 2,000 diamonds that once belonged to Empress Eugenie.

“I remain confident that we can find them,” Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told French newspaper Le Parisien.