A Chinese woman has been charged with the theft of six gold nuggets worth about 1.5 million euros ($1.75 million; £1.3 million) from the Museum of Natural History in Paris last month, French prosecutors have said.
The woman was arrested in Barcelona while trying to dispose of some melted gold, according to officials, and is being held in pre-trial detention.
Famous for its stuffed animals and bone collections, the museum is home to a mineralogy gallery, from which the gold was taken. Police found an angle-grinder and a blowtorch at the scene.
The museum's alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyber-attack, with the thieves apparently aware of this, French media reported at the time.
The thieves, clearly very experienced and well-informed, exploited a security flaw that had not been identified during the last audit conducted in 2024, a museum spokesperson told French newspaper Le Figaro.
Cleaners discovered the break-in when they arrived for work before dawn at the museum, which is part of the Sorbonne university and located near the Jardin des Plantes in central Paris.
The suspect was arrested by Spanish police on 30 September on a European arrest warrant and handed over to French authorities on the same day, officials said in a statement. At the time of her arrest, she was in possession of around a kilogram of melted-down gold. Investigations are continuing, with authorities believing she was preparing to leave for China.
One of the largest stolen nuggets, originally from Australia, weighs 5kg and is valued at approximately €585,000 at current gold prices.
Emmanuel Skoulios, the museum director, emphasized the professionalism of the thieves, stating, It is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items.
This incident follows a daring robbery of priceless French crown jewels from the Louvre Museum, raising alarms about the security of cultural assets across France. Experts fear the stolen items may be sold for a fraction of their true value. At least four French museums, including the Louvre and the Natural History Museum, have been targeted in recent months.
The woman was arrested in Barcelona while trying to dispose of some melted gold, according to officials, and is being held in pre-trial detention.
Famous for its stuffed animals and bone collections, the museum is home to a mineralogy gallery, from which the gold was taken. Police found an angle-grinder and a blowtorch at the scene.
The museum's alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyber-attack, with the thieves apparently aware of this, French media reported at the time.
The thieves, clearly very experienced and well-informed, exploited a security flaw that had not been identified during the last audit conducted in 2024, a museum spokesperson told French newspaper Le Figaro.
Cleaners discovered the break-in when they arrived for work before dawn at the museum, which is part of the Sorbonne university and located near the Jardin des Plantes in central Paris.
The suspect was arrested by Spanish police on 30 September on a European arrest warrant and handed over to French authorities on the same day, officials said in a statement. At the time of her arrest, she was in possession of around a kilogram of melted-down gold. Investigations are continuing, with authorities believing she was preparing to leave for China.
One of the largest stolen nuggets, originally from Australia, weighs 5kg and is valued at approximately €585,000 at current gold prices.
Emmanuel Skoulios, the museum director, emphasized the professionalism of the thieves, stating, It is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items.
This incident follows a daring robbery of priceless French crown jewels from the Louvre Museum, raising alarms about the security of cultural assets across France. Experts fear the stolen items may be sold for a fraction of their true value. At least four French museums, including the Louvre and the Natural History Museum, have been targeted in recent months.
