France arrests five new suspects in Louvre heist probe: Prosecutor
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PARIS: French police have arrested five more people, including a prime suspect, over this month's daring Louvre museum jewellery robbery, the Paris prosecutor said on Thursday (Oct 30).
"We had him in our sights," Laure Beccuau said of the main suspect, adding that none of the loot worth an estimated US$102 million had been found.
DNA evidence linked the main suspect to the theft, Beccuau said, suggesting he was among the four-man team that carried out the brazen Oct 19 heist.
"As for the other individuals who are in police custody, they are people who may be able to provide us with information about the course of events," she said, adding it was "too early" to give additional details about the suspects.
The five detentions took place on Wednesday in and around Paris, particularly in Seine-Saint-Denis, a region just outside the French capital.
The new arrests followed the detention over the weekend of two men suspected of breaking into the museum through an upstairs window and stealing the precious pieces.
The pair had "partially admitted" their involvement in the heist under interrogation, Beccuau told a press conference on Wednesday.
They were charged on Wednesday with theft and criminal conspiracy and were placed in pre-trial detention.
The heist exposed security lapses at the world's most-visited museum and was seen by many as a cause for national humiliation.
Beccuau said on Wednesday she did not rule out the possibility of a larger group, including a person who could have ordered the theft and been the mastermind behind it.
Among the eight precious pieces of jewellery that were stolen in the heist are an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which is dotted with nearly 2,000 diamonds.
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