00:00Two suspects have been arrested over the Louvre crown jewel heist and they are set to be charged now with theft and criminal conspiracy.
00:08This has all been confirmed by the Paris prosecutor.
00:11Just to remind you, Sunday, October the 19th, as the museum opened for visitors, an audacious raid was carried out.
00:17A gang making off with 88 million euros worth of jewels, the French crown jewels in fact, which are still missing.
00:25Well, the Paris prosecutor spoke a little earlier.
00:30These two men are suspected of being those who penetrated the Apollo gallery to take the jewels.
00:37The first, aged 34, and of Algerian nationality.
00:42The second suspect is aged 39.
00:44He is already known to authorities for aggravated theft perpetrated in 2008 and 2014.
00:51He is also under judicial supervision in another case of aggravated theft.
00:54The Paris prosecutor, Laure Becquot, Catherine Harris-Trent, has been following the story for us.
01:02The Paris prosecutor said that the two men who were taken into custody on Saturday night have been up before a judge.
01:13And the charges they are looking at are robbery as part of an organised gang and being part of a criminal conspiracy.
01:23Those two men, she said, had partially confessed to taking part in the Louvre jewel theft, although she didn't go into much more detail about what they said, because she said this was an ongoing investigation.
01:35We also know there are at least two more suspects still on the run DNA samples from at least four people were found at the scene by the forensics team, who found more than 150 DNA samples in and around the Louvre at the site of that robbery.
01:54And the prosecutors aren't ruling out that there could be other accomplices too, although they did say that at this stage they had no evidence that made them believe that there were accomplices inside the museum, that this was an inside job.
02:08Importantly, the prosecutor said they still haven't managed to recover any of the priceless jewels that were stolen from inside the museum.
02:18And the prosecutor made an appeal to anyone who might have them or come into contact with them, saying that it was still not too late to give them back.
02:26Meanwhile, we've got a few more details about the men who are in custody.
02:30Both of them had been living in the suburbs north of Paris.
02:34One of them, a 34-year-old man, an Algerian national, had been arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Saturday night as he was preparing to board a flight to Algeria on a one-way ticket.
02:44He was previously known to police for theft.
02:47The other one, a 39-year-old man who had previously been convicted of theft in 2004 and 2018.
02:55So the investigation continues as to the questions about how such a theft and such a major security breach at the Louvre Museum could have happened.
03:06Catherine Norris-Trent following the story of the theft of the French crown jewels from the Louvre, two men set to be charged with theft and conspiracy.
03:15The hunt, of course, for the jewels and the rest of the gang continues.
Comments