The sensational robbery at the Louvre could be the work of petty thieves and not of great criminal minds, according to the Paris prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, and without accomplices inside the museum. What facilitated the robbery of almost 90 million euros were the security flaws admitted by the Minister of Culture Rachida Dati, who spoke of “a chronic and structural underestimation of the risk of theft”. This picture is confirmed by documents from 2014, obtained by Libération: they reveal that the password to access the museum’s video surveillance server was decidedly easy to guess: it was the word LOUVRE. A report from the National Agency for IT Security concluded, ten years ago: «Who control the Louvre network can make the theft of works of art easier.” A great embarrassment, therefore, for the museum’s leaders. Meanwhile, the treasure hunt continues. Two weeks after the robbers entered the Apollo gallery, in broad daylight, with a freight elevator and then fled on a motorbike with the crown jewels, there is still no trace of the stolen goods.
Investigations continue and four people are in prison after police arrested two new suspects on Saturday, and three others were arrested and later released. We are still looking for an accomplice who would have been part of the commando as well as possible clients. The latest operation by the police involved a couple with children who live on the northern outskirts of Paris, in La Courneuve, and deny all charges. However, the DNA of both was detected on the basket of the freight elevator. Prosecutor Beccuau explained that the traces of the 37-year-old man are “significant”, while those of the 38-year-old woman could be “transfer DNA”, deposited indirectly with objects or people. At the moment he is charged with theft in an organized gang (penalty of up to 15 years) and criminal association aimed at theft in an organized gang (penalty of up to 10 years), while his partner only for complicity in the same crimes. The woman, in front of the judge, burst into tears and said she feared for her life and that of her children, proclaiming herself completely innocent. The other two arrested were arrested on October 25, one at Roissy airport, where he was leaving for Algeria, and the other in Aubervilliers. The 37-year-old had been involved in the past, together with one of them, in another theft case, in Paris, in 2015, he writes. Le Figaro. And he had a total of eleven convictions for theft, aggravated theft, traffic crimes and acts of violence. The profiles of the suspects are far from the image of organized crime that a robbery of this size might have suggested. According to prosecutor Beccuau, speaking on France info, they seem rather like people who are little known in that world, “but who quickly emerge to be involved in extremely serious organized crimes”.