Louvre heist work of 'petty criminals'

Suspects from 'poor suburbs of capital'

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The audacious daytime robbery of historical jewels worth US$102 million (3.3 billion baht) from the Paris Louvre museum last month was executed by petty criminals, rather than professionals from the world of organised crime, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday.

On a Sunday morning three weeks ago, two men parked a movers' lift outside the Louvre, rode up to the second storey, smashed a window, cracked open display cases with angle grinders, and then fled on the back of scooters driven by two accomplices in a heist lasting less than seven minutes.

With three of the four suspected thieves now believed to be under arrest and the jewels still missing, their profiles do not resemble Ocean's Eleven-style professional gangsters, but small-time criminals from the hardscrabble northern suburbs of Paris, authorities say.

"This is not quite everyday delinquency... but it is a type of delinquency that we do not generally associate with the upper echelons of organised crime," Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told franceinfo radio.