Paris prosecutor says stolen Louvre jewels worth an estimated US$102 million

This map shows the route taken by thieves stealing from the Gallery of Apollo in the Louvre. (AP Digital Embed)

PARIS — The Paris prosecutor said Tuesday that crown jewels stolen in a dramatic weekend Louvre heist were worth an estimated 88 million euros (US$102 million), but that the monetary estimate doesn’t include their historical value to France.

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office is leading the investigation, said about 100 investigators are now involved in the police hunt for the suspects and gems after Sunday’s theft from the world’s most-visited museum.

“The wrongdoers who took these gems won’t earn 88 million euros if they had the very bad idea of disassembling these jewels,″ she said in an interview with broadcaster RTL. ″We can perhaps hope that they’ll think about this and won’t destroy these jewels without rhyme or reason.″

Also Tuesday, France’s culture minister said that the security apparatus installed at the Louvre worked properly during the theft.

Questions have arisen about the Louvre security — and whether security cameras might have failed — after thieves rode a basket lift up the Louvre’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels on Sunday morning.

“The Louvre museum’s security apparatus did not fail, that is a fact,” the minister, Rachida Dati, told lawmakers in the National Assembly. ”The Louvre museum’s security apparatus worked.”

Dati said she launched an administrative inquiry that comes in addition to a police investigation to ensure full transparency ito what happened. She did not offer any details about how the thieves managed to carry out their heist given that the cameras were working.

But she described it as a painful blow for the nation.

The robbery was “a wound for all of us,” she said. ”Why? Because the Louvre is far more than the world’s largest museum. It’s a showcase for our French culture and our shared patrimony.”

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Monday that the museum’s alarm was triggered when the window of the Apollo Gallery was forced.

Police officers arrived on site two or three minutes after they were called by an individual that witnessed the scene, he said on LCI television.

Officials said the heist lasted less than eight minutes in total, including less than four minutes inside the Louvre.

Nuñez did not disclose details about video surveillance cameras that may have filmed the thieves around and in the museum pending a police investigation. “There are cameras all around the Louvre,” he said.

Sunday’s theft focused on the gilded Apollo Gallery, where the Crown Diamonds are displayed. Alarms brought Louvre agents to the room, forcing the intruders to bolt, but the robbery was already over.

Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; and Empress Eugénie’s diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch, a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble.

John Leicester contributed to this report

Sylvie Corbert, The Associated Press