French authorities have detained two of the suspected robbers believed to have stolen precious crown jewels from the Louvre in a museum heist that stunned the world.
In the October 19 daylight heist the robbers went up an extendable ladder of a stolen movers' truck and, using cutting equipment, broke into a gallery that houses royal gems, then escaped on motorcycles.
They dropped a diamond and emerald-studded crown as they fled down the ladder, but managed to steal eight other pieces include an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon Bonaparte gave his wife, the Empress Marie-Louise.
In all, they made off with jewellery worth an estimated 88 million euros ($156.6 million) in just a few minutes.
So what happens next? And what does the brazen theft mean?
What is known about the suspects?
Authorities have not yet released names, but French newspapers Le Monde and Le Parisien have reported that one of the suspects was arrested preparing to leave France for Algeria at Charles de Gaulle airport.
The two suspects were known to the police for committing thefts, a source close the case said, adding that they were in their 30s and from Seine-Saint-Denis, a region just outside Paris.
The second man was detained not long afterwards in the Paris region, media reports said.
The two men were taken into custody on suspicion of organised theft and criminal conspiracy.
They can be held for up to 96 hours.
After media reports of the detentions, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said authorities had "carried out arrests on Saturday evening" and confirmed that "one of the men arrested was about to leave the country".
Ms Beccuau deplored the public revelation of the arrests, warning they "can only hinder the efforts of the 100 investigators mobilised" in the hunt for the jewels and the perpetrators.
In a post on X, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez also called for confidentiality while congratulating the investigators "who have worked tirelessly".
Who is investigating?
A swarm of investigators from Brigade de Répression du Banditisme and the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property has been mobilised to track down the thieves.
The Brigade de Répression du Banditisme — the banditry repression brigade — is the police special unit of the French Ministry of the Interior (Ministère de l'Intérieur) which is in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and scams, stolen cars and art thefts.
INTERPOL has also put out an alert.
When an offence is committed, the Paris public prosector — similar to Australian state-based public prosecutors — can lay charges against the accused in a criminal court.
Ms Beccuau said public and private security cameras had allowed detectives to track the thieves "in Paris and in surrounding regions".
Investigators were also able to find DNA samples and fingerprints at the scene from items left behind by the robbers as they fled including gloves, a high-vis vest, a blowtorch and power tools.
The public prosecutor may, in complex crimes, open an investigation by referring the matter to a judge.
What about security?
Many people see the heist as a stunning security lapse.
"It's staggering that a handful of people couldn't be stopped in broad daylight," said Nadia Benyamina, a Paris shopkeeper who visits the gallery monthly.
"There were failures — avoidable ones. That's the wound."
Investigators say the thieves rode a basket lift up the building's river-facing facade, forced open a window, smashed two display cases and fled — all in minutes.
Alarms sounded, drawing security to the gallery and forcing the intruders to bolt, officials said.
In Senate testimony, Louvre director Laurence des Cars acknowledged "a terrible failure," citing gaps in exterior camera coverage and proposing vehicle barriers and a police post inside the museum.
She offered to resign. The culture minister refused.
The heist followed months of warnings about chronic understaffing and crowd pressure points.
The palace-museum reopened to maximum crowds on Wednesday last week, even as the jewels remained missing and investigations continued.
Long before the robbery the museum was straining under mass tourism — roughly 33,000 visitors a day — and staff warned it could not easily absorb another surge, especially with the Apollo Gallery sealed and security resources stretched.
In January French President Emmanuel Macron announced renovations to help ease congestion inside the Louvre in a speech in front of the Mona Lisa.
The work, costing between 700 and 830 million euros ($1.4 billion), will include a separate space with a separate entrance for Leonardo Da Vinci's painting as well as further refurbishments over the next few years while the museum remains open.
Built in the late 12th century, the Louvre Palace used to be the official residence of the kings of France until Louis XIV abandoned it for Versailles.
It was turned into a museum for the royal art collection in 1793, four years after the French Revolution.
Its huge collection of masterpieces, including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo statue, brought in 8.7 million visitors last year.
There is currently only one entrance to the Louvre — unless you're a creative thief with access to a crane.
Making the most of a bad situation
The robbery at the Louvre has done what no marketing campaign ever could by catapulting France's dusty crown jewels — long admired at home, little known abroad — to global fame.
Böcker, the company that manufactured the cherry picker used in the heist, was quick to capitalise on the publicity.
The German company created an ad with a picture of the machine outside the Louvre with the catchphrase: "If you're in a hurry. The Böcker Aglio carriers your treasures up to 400kg at 42m/min — quiet as a whisper thanks to its 230V electric motor."
The crime is also a paradox.
Some say it will make celebrities of the very jewels it sought to erase — much as the Mona Lisa's turn-of-the-20th-century theft transformed the then little-known Renaissance portrait into the world's most famous artwork.
In 1911, a museum handyman lifted the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece off its hook.
The loss went unnoticed for more than a day.
Newspapers turned it into a global mystery and crowds came to stare at the empty space.
When the painting resurfaced two years later, its fame eclipsed everything else in the museum. And that remains so today.
That is the uneasy question shadowing the jewel theft — whether a crime that cut deep will glorify what's left behind, according to Paris art historian Anya Firestone.
"Because of the drama, the scandal, the heist, the Apollo Gallery itself and the jewels that remain will likely receive a new spotlight and become celebrities, just like the Mona Lisa after 1911," she said.
Any publicity is good publicity
The heist has electrified global media and social media.
Nightly newscasts across the world have beamed the Louvre, its Apollo Gallery and the missing jewels to hundreds of millions.
It is a surge of attention some say rivals, or even surpasses, the frenzy after Beyoncé and Jay-Z's 2018 Apeshit video, filmed inside the museum.
The Louvre is once again a global set.
For generations, the British monarchy's regalia has captured the popular imagination through centuries of coronations and drawing millions every year to their display in the Tower of London.
France's jewels sparkled in their shadow.
One early emblem of that celebrity effect could be the survivor piece itself — Empress Eugénie's emerald-set crown, dropped in the getaway and studded with more than 1,300 diamonds — which may now become the gallery's most talked-about relic.
"I'd never even heard of Eugénie's crown until this," said Mateo Ruiz, a 27-year-old visitor from Seville.
"Now it's the first thing I want to see when the gallery reopens."
Among the treasures that escaped the thieves' grasp are storied gems still gleaming under glass — the Regent, the Sancy, and the Hortensia diamonds.
Authorities said one other stolen bejewelled piece, besides Empress Eugénie's damaged crown, has since been quietly recovered.
Though they have declined to identify it.
Jewels represent French history
For France, the loss is more than precious stones and artefacts — it is pages torn from the national record.
The Apollo Gallery reads as a timeline in gold and light, carrying the country from Bourbon ceremony to Napoleon's self-fashioned empire and into modern France.
"The jewels are the Louvre's final word in the language of monarchy — a glittering echo of kings and queens as France crossed into a new era," Ms Firestone said.
They are not ornaments, she argued, but chapters of French history, marking the end of the royal order and the beginning of the country France is today.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the theft an "immeasurable" heritage loss, and the museum said the pieces carry "inestimable" historic weight — a reminder that what vanished was not just monetary.
Outside the blocked doors of the Apollo gallery, visitors now come to see what cannot be seen.
"I came to see where it happened," said student Tobias Klein.
"That barricade is chilling. People are looking with shock and curiosity."
Others feel a flicker of hope.
"They're ghosts now, but there's still hope they'll be found," said Rose Nguyen, an artist from Reims.
"It's the same strange magnetism the Mona Lisa had after 1911. The story becomes part of the object."
Curators warn that recutting or melting the jewels would be a second violence.
In museums, authenticity lives in the original — the mount, the design, the work of the goldsmith's hand, and the unbroken story of who made, wore, treasured, exhibited and, yes, stole the object.
"In the strange economy of fame, even bad news becomes attention — and attention makes icons," Ms Firestone said.
With wires
