Louvre Museum $102 Million Heist: Couple Among Four Charged in Historic Jewelry Theft

The stolen jewels are estimated to be worth $102 million.

France:

Small-time criminals are believed to be responsible for the dramatic jewel heist at the Louvre, according to the Paris prosecutor who revealed on Sunday that two of the suspects are a couple with children.

Last month, a four-person gang executed a raid on the world's most-visited art museum in broad daylight, taking merely seven minutes to steal jewelry valued at an estimated $102 million before escaping on scooters.

The thieves positioned a truck with an extendable ladder beneath the museum's Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels, climbed up, broke a window, and used angle grinders to cut into glass display cases containing the treasures.

Two men suspected of being the individuals who broke into the gallery while their two accomplices waited outside have been detained, charged, and remanded in custody.

Prosecutors announced on Saturday that two additional suspects, a man and a woman, had also been charged and remanded in custody.

Authorities have not yet recovered the stolen jewels.

On Sunday, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau stated that the suspects, who resided in the northern suburbs of the French capital, were believed to be small-time criminals rather than members of organized crime groups.

Their profiles do not match those "generally associated with the upper echelons of organized crime," Beccuau told France Info.

At least one other person is still being sought, she added.

Beccuau revealed that the 37-year-old man and 38-year-old woman charged on Saturday were a couple with children.

They have "denied any involvement," Beccuau said, noting that the man refused to make any statement.

The suspects are "clearly local people," she stated.

"They all lived more or less in Seine-Saint-Denis," the prosecutor said, referring to a region north of Paris.

"Some are connected, particularly the couple," she said.

Two of the male suspects were convicted together in a theft case in 2015, she added.

The 37-year-old man has been charged with organized theft and criminal conspiracy, while his partner has been charged with complicity in organized theft and criminal conspiracy.

The woman was tearful when she appeared at a Paris court on Saturday, expressing fears for her children and herself.

The couple were arrested after their DNA was found in the basket lift used during the robbery.

"Significant" DNA evidence linking the man to the crime was found in the basket lift, the prosecutor said. Traces of his partner's DNA were also found, but they might have been transferred there through contact with a person or object, she added.

"All this will need to be investigated," Beccuau said.

The man's criminal record contained 11 previous convictions, most of them for theft, she revealed.

The first two men arrested earlier were also known to the police for having committed thefts. Both lived in the northeastern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers.

One of the two men from Aubervilliers and the man charged on Saturday "were involved in the same theft case for which they were convicted in Paris in 2015," said the prosecutor.

Three people arrested along with the couple this week have been released without charge.

The thieves dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped.

But they made off with eight other items of jewelry, including an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise.

The search for the jewels continues, the prosecutor said.

"All avenues are being explored," she said, adding the treasures "could be used for money laundering".

"We are examining all the possibilities offered by the black market for selling this jewelry, which I hope will not happen any time soon."