Two arrested after $102M Louvre heist in Paris

French police arrested two men suspected of stealing crown jewels valued at $102 million from the Louvre museum. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said authorities detained one suspect at Charles de Gaulle airport as he prepared to board a flight to Algeria. Officers captured the second man in the Paris area shortly afterward.

Thieves used a stolen moving truck and ladder to access a first-floor gallery on October 19, cutting their way inside and escaping with eight pieces of historic jewelry. The robbers dropped a diamond-and-emerald crown while fleeing, but took other items from Napoleon Bonaparte’s collection. One hundred investigators traced the suspects through security footage and DNA evidence collected at the crime scene.

The robbery exposed security weaknesses at the world-famous museum. Similar thefts have struck French cultural sites recently, with another museum reporting the theft of coins and the Natural History Museum losing gold nuggets worth more than $1.5 million.