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The crew of chainsaw-wielding thieves who brazenly robbed The Louvre of priceless jewels in the highest-profile museum theft in living memory may have been hired by a collector, officials said.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said authorities are investigating whether the heist was commissioned by a collector.
“We’re looking at the hypothesis of organized crime,” she told BFM TV, adding that it could be professionals working on spec for a buyer.
If a collector was behind Sunday’s daring raid, there is at least a good chance that the stolen pieces would still be in a good state once they’re tracked down and retrieved, Beccuau said.
The jewels could also be used to launder profits from other criminal enterprises, according to the prosecutor.
“Nowadays, anything can be linked to drug trafficking, given the significant sums of money obtained from drug trafficking,” she said.
Investigators were keeping all leads open but foreign interference had been largely ruled out in the case, Beccuau insisted.
France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the probe had been entrusted to a specialized police unit that has a high success rate in cracking high-profile robberies.
The Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, said it would remain closed on Monday after Sunday’s hit — which took just a matter of minutes.
Masked thieves disguised as construction workers robbed the Paris museum Sunday morning in front of visitors and workers.
The trio reportedly used a basket lift to get up to a second-floor window and used mini gas-powered chainsaws to break in, threatening a security guard in the process, Le Parisien reported.
Shocking footage from inside the Louvre shows one of the criminals in a green reflective vest calmly cutting through a glass case surrounding one of the targeted items as visitors watched.
Two of the robbers were seen nonchalantly smashed display cases containing French Crown Jewels worth an “incalculable” amount of money, officials said.
A total of nine objects were targeted by the criminals, eight of which were actually stolen. The thieves lost the ninth one, the crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, during their escape.
“It’s worth several tens of millions of euros — just this crown. And it’s not, in my opinion, the most important item,” Drouot auction house President Alexandre Giquello told Reuters.
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