The furnishings elevator was connected to a truck stolen in Louvres, about 3km from Charles de Gaulle airport to the north-east of the French capital.
Specialists have warned that even when police caught the gang, it was already too late to avoid wasting the jewels which may have been damaged up.
Dozens of DNA samples had been discovered on the gallery, together with on helmets, gloves, angle grinders and a vest deserted by the robbers.Credit score: Getty Photographs
Greater than 100 detectives are on the investigation, with the Banditism Repression Brigade of the Judicial Police main the inquiry, together with the Central Workplace for Combating Trafficking in Cultural Property.
Earlier this week, Laurence des Vehicles, the director of the Louvre, instructed a French Senate Committee that no safety cameras have been monitoring the second-floor balcony the place thieves gained entry to the museum.
“Sadly, on the Apollo gallery facet, the one digicam put in faces west and due to this fact doesn’t cowl the balcony affected by the break-in,” she mentioned.
The brand new particulars of the investigation emerged because the Louvre transferred a few of its most treasured jewels to the Financial institution of France.
Law enforcement officials look at a basket crane utilized by thieves.Credit score: AP
French radio RTL reported that the switch of some treasured objects from the museum’s Apollo gallery, residence to the French crown jewels, was carried out on Friday beneath secret police escort.
The financial institution, which shops the nation’s gold reserves in a large vault 27 metres beneath floor, is lower than a kilometre from the Louvre.
Detectives have but to make an arrest over the embarrassing heist however chatting with Ouest France, Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor whose workplace is main the case, mentioned that dozens of DNA samples had been discovered on the gallery, together with on helmets, gloves, angle grinders and a vest deserted by the robbers.
“Greater than 150 samples of DNA, papillary and different traces have been taken,” she mentioned. “The analyses require deadlines, even when they’re a precedence for the labs. We expect suggestions within the coming days, which might be able to present us with leads, particularly if the perpetrators have been on file.”
Beccuau additionally confirmed that police had been ready to make use of CCTV to comply with the gang’s actions on two Yamaha TMax scooters out of Paris in the direction of different areas, including that video surveillance from private and non-private cameras “made it potential to comply with their route in Paris and in neighbouring departments”.
She gave the strongest trace but that the heist could have concerned an inside job and confirmed police have been investigating whether or not there was assist from somebody on the museum.
Beccuau mentioned: “We clearly need to arrest the perpetrators as shortly as potential to get well the jewelry earlier than their stones are probably eliminated and the metals melted down.
“We’re due to this fact exploring all theories. The opportunity of complicity throughout the museum shall be studied, as will all different potentialities.”
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Beccuau mentioned that media protection had given her the “small hope” that the gang “received’t dare transfer an excessive amount of with the jewels” and that if police moved shortly, they may nonetheless get well them.
“I need to be optimistic. And that’s the hope that the investigators additionally keep, therefore their absolute and intense mobilisation.”
The Louvre has mentioned it could not be commenting on the investigation.
CGI Group, an Israeli intelligence agency which beforehand helped clear up a multi-million pound heist on the Inexperienced Vault in Dresden, Germany, has additionally been introduced in to assist.
Zvika Nave, chief government, mentioned he wouldn’t remark about its operations or purchasers.
“Nevertheless, as an distinctive case, we have been approached by events linked to the Louvre museum to help in figuring out these concerned within the theft, in addition to in recovering the stolen treasures,” he mentioned.
“This request got here in gentle of our expertise and success in 2019 in fixing the billion-euro Dresden museum heist in Germany.”
The Telegraph, London
