By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press
PARIS (AP) — The Paris prosecutor announced four more arrests Tuesday in connection with the stunning heist at the Louvre Museum in October by a gang that made off with $102 million worth of jewels.
The two men and two women in custody are from the Paris region and range in age from 31 to 40, said the prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, whose office is heading the investigation.
Her statement didn’t say what role they’re suspected of having played in the Oct. 19 theft. Police can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
The loot hasn’t been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
The police dragnet has previously caught other suspected members of the four-person team thought to have carried out the daring daylight robbery.
Investigating magistrates filed preliminary robbery and criminal conspiracy charges against three men and one woman arrested in October.
The robbery has focused attention on security at the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum.
The thieves took less than eight minutes to force their way through a window into the ornate Apollo Gallery, break into the jewelry display cases with disc cutters and make off with the trove, descending on a freight lift to meet up with riders on scooters who whisked them away.
The emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum.
