Louvre transfers jewels to Bank of France

The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France, according to French radio RTL, after an audacious daylight heist last week exposed the famed museum’s security vulnerability.

The transfer of some precious items from the museum’s Apollo gallery, home to the French crown jewels, was carried out on Friday under secret police escort, RTL said, citing unnamed sources.

The Bank of France, which stores the country’s gold reserves in a massive vault 27 metres below ground, is just 500 meters away from the Louvre, on the Right Bank of the River Seine.

The Louvre and the Bank of France did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The thieves stole eight precious pieces worth an estimated $102 million from the Louvre’s collection on Oct.19, exposing security lapses as they broke into the world’s most-visited museum using a crane to smash an upstairs window during opening hours. They escaped on motorbikes.

News of the robbery reverberated around the world, prompting soul-searching in France over what some viewed as a national humiliation.

Earlier, a prosecutor said that French investigators are analysing dozens of DNA samples and fingerprints after this weekend’s daylight jewel theft from the Louvre museum.

Up to “150 DNA samples, fingerprints and other traces” have been identified, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told the Ouest France local newspaper.

She said their analysis was a priority and results within the next days would hopefully provide leads, especially if the culprits had a criminal record.

The thieves on Sunday clambered up the extendable ladder of a stolen movers’ truck and, using cutting equipment, broke into a first-floor gallery containing jewels.

They dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown as they fled down the ladder and onto scooters, but still made away with eight pieces of jewellery worth an estimated $102 million.

The Louvre’s director on Wednesday admitted they had taken advantage of a blind spot in the security surveillance of the museum’s outside walls.

But Beccuau said public and private security cameras elsewhere had allowed detectives to track the thieves “in Paris and in surrounding regions.”

She said she hoped that, with all the media attention on the robbery, “the robbers will not really dare move with the jewels.”

“I want to be optimistic,” she said.

Agencies