Two suspects in the brazen daylight robbery of some of France's crown jewels from the Louvre have been arrested near Paris yesterday evening, the Paris prosecutor has said, confirming an earlier report from newspaper Le Parisien.
The theft happened in the French capital last weekend, when thieves broke into the museum using a crane.
They then smashed an upstairs window stealing the jewellery from an area that houses the French crown jewels, before escaping on motorbikes.
A ninth object, the diamond and emerald encrusted crown of the Empress Eugenie, was recovered nearby, where it was dropped by the thieves as they fled.
The thieves still made away with the eight pieces of jewellery worth an estimated $102 million.
One of the suspects was arrested at around 10pm local time last night at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport as he was about to board a plane to Algeria, the Paris prosecutor said.
The men in their 30s and originally from the capital's Seine-Saint-Denis suburb - which includes some of the country's most deprived areas - were detained yesterday evening, according to Le Parisien newspaper, which first broke the story.
They were known to French police, the newspaper said.
There was no indication that any of the stolen crown jewels had been recovered.
Items stolen include an emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon Bonaparte gave his wife, Empress Marie-Louise, and a diadem that once belonged to the Empress Eugenie, which is dotted with nearly 2,000 diamonds.
