Two suspects have been arrested over the theft of precious crown jewels from Paris's Louvre museum. According to French media, one of the men had been taken into custody as he was preparing to take a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport.
Items worth €88m, which is equivalent to $FJD230 million(s), were taken from the world's most-visited museum last Sunday, when four thieves wielding power tools broke into the building in broad daylight.
France's Justice Minister said security protocols "failed", leaving the country with a "terrible image".
The Paris prosecutor's office said in a statement that the arrests had been made on Saturday evening, without specifying how many people had been taken into custody.
One of the suspects was preparing to travel to Algeria, police sources have told French media, while it is understood the other was going to Mali.
They say the suspects arrived with a vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d'Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine.
Pictures from the scene showed the ladder leading up to a first-floor window.
Two of the thieves entered by cutting through the window with power tools. They then threatened the guards, who evacuated the premises, and cut through the glass of two display cases containing jewels.
A preliminary report has revealed that one in three rooms in the area of the museum raided had no CCTV cameras, according to French media.
French police say the thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside.
The museum's director says the only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where they broke in was pointing away from the first-floor balcony that led to Gallery of Apollo.
CCTV around the perimeter was also weak and "ageing", Laurence des Cars said, meaning that staff failed to spot the gang early enough to stop the theft.
Experts have also expressed concern that the jewels may have already been broken up into hundreds of pieces. Gold and silver can be melted down and the gems can be cut up into smaller stones that will be virtually impossible to track back to the robbery, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand told the BBC.
Security measures have since been tightened around France's cultural institutions.
The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France following the heist. They will now be stored in the Bank's most secure vault, 26m (85ft) below the ground floor of its elegant headquarters in central Paris.
[Source : BBC]
