.
PARIS:
The loot stolen from the Louvre during the weekend heist is valued at more than $100 million, a French prosecutor said Tuesday, as scrutiny mounted over security at the country’s cultural institutions.
Thieves on Sunday made off with priceless royal jewels from the Louvre museum in a brazen daylight robbery which lasted just seven minutes.
“The Louvre curator estimated the damages to be 88 million euros,” or $102 million, said Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, calling it an “extraordinary” sum.
But she said the greater loss was to France’s historical heritage, adding that the thieves would not pocket the full windfall if they had “the very bad idea of melting down these jewels”.
The theft is the latest from French museums in recent months, and has left authorities scrambling to increase protection measures.
In a separate case, a prosecutor said on Tuesday that a Chinese woman had been charged over taking part in the theft of more than $1 million worth of gold nuggets from another Paris museum last month.
Scores of investigators were still looking for Sunday’s culprits, working on the theory that it was an organised crime group that clambered up a ladder on a truck to break into the museum, then dropped a diamond-studded crown as they fled.
Beccuau confirmed that four people were involved in Sunday’s robbery and said authorities were analysing fingerprints found at the scene.
Detectives were scouring video camera footage from around the Louvre as well as of main highways out of Paris for signs of the four robbers, who escaped on scooters.
The heist has reignited a row over the lack of security in French museums, after two other institutions were hit last month.
A report by France’s Court of Auditors seen by AFP covering 2019 to 2024 points to a “persistent” delay in security upgrades at the Louvre. Only a fourth of one wing was covered by video surveillance. AFP
