Woman, 38, breaks down in tears as she seems earlier than Justice of the Peace charged over £76million Louvre jewelry heist
A woman arrested this week along with four other suspects over the £76million jewel heist at the Louvre was charged and remanded in custody on Saturday.
As she appeared at a Paris court, the 38-year-old was in tears saying she feared for ‘her children’ and for herself, according to AFP.
The woman has been charged with complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime.
The magistrate justified the detention of the woman who lives in Paris’s northern suburb of La Courneuve on the grounds of a ‘risk of collusion’ and ‘disturbance of public order’.
In total, two of the five people arrested this week were charged on Saturday, while the other three have been released without charge, sources close to the case told AFP.
Last month, thieves wielding power tools raided the Louvre, the world’s most visited art museum, in broad daylight, taking just seven minutes to steal jewellery worth an estimated $102 million.
French authorities initially announced the arrest of two male suspects over the Louvre robbery, and this week prosecutors said that police had arrested five more people.
Adrien Sorrentino, a lawyer for the woman who was remanded in custody, said his client ‘vehemently’ denied the charges against her.
Investigators have been casing the crime scene for DNA
Among the treasures taken was the Eugénie Crown, found tossed below a window of the Louvre and broken in pieces (Stock Photo)
‘She is devastated,’ Sorrentino told reporters.
‘This is a spectacular heist, and the decision that has just been made is a spectacular one: a young woman has just been placed in detention despite being presumed innocent.’
One other person under investigation has also been placed in pre-trial detention, pending a hearing postponed until Tuesday, said one of the sources.
Three of the five people arrested this week were released without charge.
Sofia Bougrine, a lawyer for one of them, pointed to what she said was the indiscriminate nature of some of the arrests.
‘In these serious crime cases, we find that waves of arrests look more like drift nets,’ Bougrine told AFP.
The first two men arrested previously were charged with theft and criminal conspiracy after ‘partially admitting to the charges’, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
They are suspected of being the two who broke into the gallery while two accomplices waited outside.
The Galerie d’Apollon, scene of the extraordinary heist which on Sunday morning saw a group of four thieves walk away with £76million-worth of France’s crown jewels
The world-famous Louvre museum in Paris was hit by a gang who stole jewellery worth millions (pictured: French police officers next to a ladder propped up against the tourist site)
Both suspects lived in the northeastern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers.
One is a 34-year-old Algerian national living in France, who was identified by DNA traces found on one of the scooters used to flee the heist.
The second man is a 39-year-old unlicensed taxi driver.
Both were known to the police for having committed thefts.
The first was arrested as he was about to board a plane for Algeria at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport.
The second was apprehended shortly after near his home, and there was no evidence to suggest that he was planning to go abroad, prosecutors said.
Investigators are seen gathering evidence left behind by the thieves, including the grinders used to force their way into the museum
Officers rushed to the scene and were pictured inspecting the empty site after a mass evacuation
The stolen loot remains missing.
The thieves dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown that once belonged to Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped.
The burglars made off with eight other items of jewellery.
Among them are an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which is dotted with nearly 2,000 diamonds.
This is a breaking news story, more to come.
