Traces left at Louvre offer 'a small hope' of catching thieves behind jewel theft

French investigators are analysing more than 150 DNA samples, fingerprints and other traces from tools and safety gear left by the thieves who broke into the Louvre museum and escaped with crown jewels worth an estimated €88m (£76m).

- Jon Henley

Five days after the brazen heist from the world’s most visited museum, Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said she had “a small hope” the jewels could still be recovered and was “optimistic” about the investigation’s outcome.

She said she expected that “in the next few days, results will perhaps provide us with leads, particularly if the perpetrators have criminal records”, reported the Ouest-France newspaper.

The gang of four men pulled up outside the Louvre at 9.30am on Sunday, soon after it opened, in a stolen furniture removal truck fitted with a 30-metre (90ft) extending ladder and lift, in which two ascended to the first-floor Apollo gallery, housing France’s remaining crown jewels.

Wearing high-vis vests, they smashed an unsecured window and then used disc cutters to open two display cases, before descending again in the bucket lift and making their escape on motorbikes driven by the other two members of the gang.