Louvre heist probe still aims to 'recover jewellery', top prosecutor says

"That Sunday morning in October, thieves parked a mover's truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre's Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels. Two of the thieves climbed up the ladder, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut glass display booths containing the treasures, while the other two waited below, investigators say. The four then fled on high-powered motor scooters, dropping a diamond-and-emerald crown in their hurry."

""The interrogations have not produced any new investigative elements," top Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said this week, three months after the broad-daylight heist. But the case remains a top priority, she underlined. "Our main objective is still to recover the jewellery," she said. 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 said, though she added: "Anything is possible.""

"Detectives benefitted from contacts with "intermediaries in the art world, including internationally" as they pursued their probe. "They have ways of receiving warning signals about networks of receivers of stolen goods, including abroad," Beccuau said. As for anyone coming forward to hand over the jewels, that would be considered to be "active repentance, which could be taken into consideration" later during a trial, she said."

French investigators remain determined to recover imperial jewels stolen from the Louvre in October. Police say all four thieves who carried out the October 19 robbery have been arrested and the stolen jewellery is valued at about $102 million. Interrogations have produced no new leads, but recovering the jewels remains the main objective. Thieves used a mover's truck and extendable ladder to access the Apollo Gallery, cut display cases with angle grinders, and fled on high-powered scooters, dropping one crown. Eight items, including Napoleon I's emerald-and-diamond necklace to Empress Marie-Louise, remain missing. Investigators are pursuing domestic and international leads through art-world intermediaries; anyone returning the jewels could receive consideration for active repentance at trial.

Read at The Local France