Theft

PARIS — Two suspects in the Louvre jewel heist on Wednesday were handed preliminary charges of criminal conspiracy and theft committed by an organized gang, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. The prosecutor said they admitted their involvement.

Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said at a news conference that the two are believed to be the men who forced their way into the world’s most visited museum Oct. 19, and that at least two other accomplices are at large. The jewels remain missing.

The two were given preliminary charges and ordered held in custody pending further investigation, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

They have “partially” admitted their participation in the robbery, Beccuau said. She declined to provide details about the suspects’ statements to investigators because accomplices were still being sought.

It took thieves less than eight minutes to steal the jewels valued at $102 million on Oct. 19, shocking the world. The robbers forced open a window, cut into cases with power tools and fled with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.

Suspects’ DNA was found

The two men arrested on Saturday night “are suspected of being the ones who broke into the Apollo Gallery to steal the jewels,” Beccuau said.

One is a 34-year-old Algerian national who has been living in France since 2010, Beccuau said. He was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport as he was about to fly to Algeria with no return ticket. He was living in a suburb north of Paris, Aubervilliers, and was known to police mostly for road traffic offenses. His DNA was found on one of the scooters used by robbers to leave the scene, she said.

The other suspect, 39, was arrested at his home in Aubervilliers. “There is no evidence to suggest that he was about to leave the country,” Beccuau said. The man was known to police for several thefts, and his DNA was found on one of the glass cases where the jewels were displayed and on items the thieves left behind, she added.

Video surveillance cameras showed there were at least four criminals involved, Beccuau said.

The four suspected robbers arrived onboard a truck equipped with a freight lift that two of them used to climb up to the museum’s window. The four left on two motor scooters along the Seine River toward eastern Paris, where they had some other vehicles parked, she said.

Beccuau said nothing suggests that the robbers had any accomplices within the museum’s staff.

The jewels are still missing

The jewels have not been recovered, Beccuau said.

“These jewels are now, of course, unsellable … Anyone who buys them would be guilty of concealment of stolen goods,” she warned. “There’s still time to give them back.”

Earlier Wednesday, French police acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defenses — turning the dazzling daylight theft into a national reckoning over how France protects its treasures.

Paris Police Chief Patrice Faure told Senate lawmakers that aging systems and slow-moving fixes left weak seams in the museum.

“A technological step has not been taken,” he said, noting that parts of the video network are still analog, producing lower-quality images that are slow to share in real time.

A long-promised revamp — a $93-million project requiring roughly 37 miles of new cabling — “will not be finished before 2029-2030,” he said.

Faure also disclosed that the Louvre’s authorization to operate its security cameras quietly expired in July and wasn’t renewed — a paperwork lapse that some see as a symbol of broader negligence.

The police chief said officers “arrived extremely fast” after the theft, but added the lag in response occurred earlier in the chain — from first detection, to museum security, to the emergency line, to police command.

Faure and his team said the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s alarms but from a cyclist outside who dialed the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift.

Faure urged lawmakers to authorize tools currently off-limits: AI-based anomaly detection and object tracking (not facial recognition) to flag suspicious movements and follow scooters or gear across city cameras in real time.

Former bank robber David Desclos has told the AP the theft was textbook and vulnerabilities were glaringly obvious in the layout of the gallery.

Museum and culture officials under pressure

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, under pressure, has refused the Louvre director’s resignation and insisted that alarms worked, while acknowledging “security gaps did exist.”

The museum was already under strain. In June, the Louvre shut in a spontaneous staff strike — including security agents — over unmanageable crowds, chronic understaffing and “untenable” conditions. Unions say mass tourism and construction pinch points create blind spots, a vulnerability underscored by the thieves who rolled a basket lift to the Seine-facing façade.

Faure said police will now track surveillance-permit deadlines across institutions to prevent repeats of the July lapse. But he stressed the larger fix is disruptive and slow: ripping out and rebuilding core systems while the palace stays open, and updating the law so police can act on suspicious movement in real time.

Experts fear that the stolen pieces may already be broken down and stones recut to erase their past.

Adamson and Corbet write for the Associated Press.

PARIS — At least two suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre Museum, the Paris prosecutor said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world.

The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

France’s BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether any jewels had been recovered.

Thieves took less than eight minutes Oct. 19 to steal jewels valued at more than $100 million from the world’s most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s facade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. In her statement, she rued the leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of more than 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”

The Louvre reopened last week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

The thieves slipped in and out while museum patrons were inside, making off with some of France’s crown jewels — a cultural wound that some compared with the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

The thieves escaped with eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but repairable.

News of the arrests was met with relief by Louvre visitors and passersby on Sunday.

“It’s important for our heritage. A week later, it does feel a bit late; we wonder how this could even happen — but it was important that the guys were caught,” said Freddy Jacquemet.

“I think the main thing now is whether they can recover the jewels,” added Diana Ramirez. “That’s what really matters.”

Petrequin and Garriga write for the Associated Press and reported from London and Paris, respectively.

PARIS — In a minutes-long strike Sunday inside the world’s most-visited museum, thieves rode a basket lift to the Louvre, forced a window into the Galerie d’Apollon — while tourists pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the corridors — smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels, officials said.

It was among the highest-profile museum thefts in recent memory and comes as Louvre employees have complained of worker and security understaffing.

One object was later found outside the museum, according to Culture Minister Rachida Dati. French daily Le Parisien reported it was the emerald-studded crown of Napoleon III’s wife Empress Eugénie — gold, diamonds and sculpted eagles — recovered just beyond the walls, broken.

The theft unfolded just 270 yards from the “Mona Lisa,” in what Dati described as “a four-minute operation.” No one was hurt.

Images from the scene showed confused tourists being steered out of the glass pyramid and adjoining courtyards as officers closed nearby streets along the Seine.

Also visible was a lift braced to the Seine-facing facade near a construction zone — an extraordinary vulnerability at a palace-museum.

A museum already under strain

Around 9:30 a.m., several intruders forced a window, cut panes with a disc cutter and went straight for the vitrines, officials said. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the crew entered from outside using a basket lift.

The choice of target compounded the shock. The vaulted Galerie d’Apollon in the Denon wing, capped by a ceiling painted for Louis XIV, displays a selection of the French Crown Jewels. The thieves are believed to have approached via the riverfront facade, where construction is underway, used a freight elevator to reach the hall, took nine pieces from a 23-item collection linked to Napoleon and the Empress, and made off on motorbikes, according to Le Parisien.

Daylight robberies during public hours are rare. Pulling one off inside the Louvre — with visitors present — ranks among Europe’s most audacious since Dresden’s Green Vault museum in 2019, and the most serious in France in more than a decade.

It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions say mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight routes and visitor flows meet.

Security around marquee works remains tight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a bespoke, climate-controlled case.

It’s unclear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday’s breach.

The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia and recovered two years later in Florence.

Today the former royal palace holds a roll call of civilization: Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”; the armless serenity of the “Venus de Milo”; the “Winged Victory” of Samothrace, wind-lashed on the Daru staircase; the Code of Hammurabi’s carved laws; Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”; Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa.” More than 33,000 works — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to Europe’s masters — draw a daily tide of up to 30,000 visitors even as investigators now begin to sweep those gilded corridors for clues.

Politics at the door

The heist spilled instantly into politics. Far-right leader Jordan Bardella used it to attack President Emmanuel Macron, weakened at home and facing a fractured Parliament.

“The Louvre is a global symbol of our culture,” Bardella wrote on X. “This robbery, which allowed thieves to steal jewels from the French Crown, is an unbearable humiliation for our country. How far will the decay of the state go?”

The criticism lands as Macron touts a decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan — about $800 million to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the “Mona Lisa” a dedicated gallery by 2031. For workers on the floor, the relief has felt slower than the pressure.

What we know — and don’t

Forensic teams are examining the site of the crime and adjoining access points while a full inventory is taken, authorities said. Officials have described the haul as being of “inestimable” historical value.

Recovery may prove difficult. “It’s unlikely these jewels will ever be seen again,” said Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds. “Professional crews often break down and re-cut large, recognizable stones to evade detection, effectively erasing their provenance.”

The Louvre closed for the rest of Sunday as police sealed gates, cleared courtyards and shut nearby streets along the Seine.

Key questions still unanswered are how many people took part in the theft and whether they had inside assistance, authorities said. According to French media, there were four perpetrators: two dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests on the lift, and two each on a scooter.

Investigators are reviewing closed-circuit TV from the Denon wing and the riverfront, inspecting the basket lift used to reach the gallery and interviewing staffers who were on site when the museum opened, authorities said.

Adamson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Oct. 16 (UPI) — A Fulton County, Ga., grand jury has indicted Kelvin Lanier Evans for allegedly breaking into a vehicle rented by Beyonce‘s choreographer and stealing two suitcases during the summer.

Evans, 40, is accused of breaking into choreographer Christopher Grant’s rented 2024 Jeep Wagoneer on July 8 while Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter tour made a stop in Atlanta, CBS News reported.

Local prosecutors on Thursday confirmed that a grand jury indicted Evans on charges that accuse him of breaking a window to access the vehicle and stealing two suitcases.

One or both of the suitcases contained the hard drives on which unreleased music, plans for tour video footage and set lists for respective tour dates were stored.

They also contained jewelry, clothing and other valuables that have not been recovered.

Officers with the Atlanta Police Department arrested Evans on Aug. 26 and held him at the Fulton County Jail, according to Newsweek and local police records.

Evans has remained jailed in lieu of a $20,000 bond.

Grant reported the theft upon discovering the vehicle’s rear window was broken and the two suitcases were missing.

“They have my computers, and it’s really, really important information in there,” he said while reporting the theft to 911.

“I work with someone who’s of a high status,” he added. “I really need my computer and everything.”

The grand jury indicted Evans on Monday, and he is charged with criminal trespass and entering a vehicle with intent to commit theft, ABC News reported.

A preliminary hearing initially was scheduled for Thursday but was canceled after the grand jury indicted Evans.

Evans has a local arrest record dating to January 2002, with several more since, according to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office.

His prior arrests include several for theft, armed robbery, assault, drug possession and other criminal violations.

Beyonce won a 2025 Grammy Award for Album of the Year for her Cowboy Carter release.

SAN JOSE — Matt Mahan didn’t set out to be a scold and pain in Gavin Newsom’s backside.

He doesn’t mean to sound like a wrathful Republican when he criticizes one-party rule in Sacramento. Or a disgruntled independent when he assails a Democratic establishment that’s become, as he sees it, “a club of insiders who take care of each other” and mostly go along to get along.

Maybe because that’s “my diagnosis of it,” said the 42-year-old San José mayor, “I have tried very consciously to not fall into that trap of just wanting to be liked.”

He is, Mahan insists, a Democrat to his core, his roots sunk deep in the loamy soil of working-class Watsonville, where, over the mountains and light years from Silicon Valley, he grew up the son of a mail carrier and a high school teacher.

That makes his candor all the more bracing, and refreshing, at a time when Democrats are struggling nationally to regain their footing and find a meaningful way forward.

“We have become so caught up in our own rhetoric of helping the little guy that we’ve stopped actually checking to make sure that we are doing that,” Mahan said over lunch at a cantina downtown.

Results, he said, are what matter. Not good intentions.

And certainly not the performative pugilism that some, including the hyper-online Newsom, pass off as leadership. “A sugar high,” Mahan called it.

“I think a lot of Democrats are frustrated and feel powerless, and so that rhetoric has this cathartic effect,” he said. “But I don’t know that it actually, over time, moves us toward success, and I mean not just success in society, but even political success, because ultimately, if you’re not offering solutions, I think you can have a hard time getting to a majority position.”

Mahan comes by his outsider status naturally.

In high school, he rode the bus four hours a day — from Watsonville to San José and back again — to attend a college prep academy on a work-study scholarship. (“My golden ticket,” he called it.) He worked on the grounds crew to help pay his way, and continued on to Harvard, where his dorm mates included Mark Zuckerberg. (The two hung out in college and still talk occasionally.)

After a year in Bolivia, helping family farmers, and a stint teaching middle school, Mahan co-founded a social media company that focused on civic engagement and raising money for nonprofits. He was elected to the San José City Council in 2020. Even before his first term was completed, Mahan launched an upstart bid for mayor.

The front-runner was a member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, a former San José vice mayor and longtime civic leader. Waging a nothing-to-lose campaign — “we had no endorsements, we had much less money” — Mahan knocked on thousands of doors. He asked voters what they had on their minds.

It turned out to be rudimentary stuff. Potholes. Public safety. A sense they were paying a whole lot of taxes and getting very little in return.

The experience impressed two things upon Mahan: a need for accountability and the importance of voters’ lived experience, as opposed to vague promises, abstract notions and politically fashionable statements.

“I think ultimately political success and policy success comes from offering better ideas and demonstrating impact,” Mahan said, sounding very much like the technocrat he calls himself.

Mahan won the mayor’s race — narrowly, in a major upset — and was reelected two years later in a November 2024 landslide. (The year Mahan was elected, San José voted to shift its mayoral contest to correspond with presidential balloting, which cut his first term in half.)

Soon enough, Mahan found himself at odds with some major Democratic constituencies, including powerful labor unions, which pushed back over wages and a return-to-office policy, and homeless advocates who bristled at Mahan’s focus on short-term housing and threat to arrest homeless people who refused multiple offers of shelter.

“Homelessness can’t be a choice,” Mahan said at a spring news conference announcing the move.

His heresies don’t end there.

Mahan broke with many Democrats by vigorously supporting Proposition 36, the 2024 anti-crime measure that stiffened penalties for repeated theft and crimes involving fentanyl. Despite opposition from Newsom and most of the state’s Democratic leadership, it passed with nearly 70% support; Mahan has since criticized Newsom and the Democratic-run Legislature for stinting on funds needed for implementation.

But his most conspicuous breach involves the governor’s Trumpy transformation into a social media troll.

While the mockery and memes may feel good as snickering payback and certainly stoke the Democratic base — boosting Newsom’s presidential hopes — Mahan suggested they are ultimately counterproductive.

“If we don’t have a politics of solutions and making people’s lives better, I just don’t know where we end up,” he said, as his enchiladas sat cooling before him. “It’s politics practiced in bad faith, where we just … tell people things that test well because they sound nice, and then we just blame the other side for being evil, incompetent, corrupt. … It’s just a race to the bottom.”

He took particular issue with Newsom’s taunting reaction after Bed Bath & Beyond recently announced it won’t open or operate new stores in California.

It wasn’t “a reasoned argument,” Mahan wrote in a scathing opinion piece in the San Francisco Standard. The tart headline: “How about less time breaking the internet and more time fixing California?”

“‘Breaking the internet’ doesn’t solve real-world problems — quite the opposite,” Mahan wrote. “More often than not, it’s just political theater that serves to excuse inaction and ineffective policies.”

He elaborated over lunch.

“You have an employer who’s pointing out real issues that everybody else who’s watching thinks are real issues. Talking about business climate, cost of doing business, public safety issues, retail theft, untreated addiction and mental illness,” Mahan said.

“When we start turning on constituents because we don’t agree with their ideology, or attacking Trump is more important than actually solving problems or listening to the criticism … I think we’re heading down a dangerous road.”

Inevitably, there’s the question: To what end all this poking of thumbs in his fellow Democrats’ eyes?

Mahan has drawn wide notice, in particular from the more pragmatic wing of the party. His back-to-basics approach has yielded some measurable success. A recent study called San José the safest major city in the country and, while the overall homeless population grew slightly, there’s been progress moving people off the streets into city shelters.

He considered plunging into the race for governor, but the timing wasn’t right. Mahan has two small children and a wife who’s flourishing in her career as an educator. Besides, Mahan said, he’s quite content being mayor of California’s third-most populous city.

“I have a wonderful marriage,” Mahan said. “I have two wonderful kids. I loved working in the private sector. I’ve got a lot of great friends. I’m doing this because I genuinely want to make our city better, and I love the job. But it’s not who I am, and I can separate myself from the job.”

That grounding and perspective, so different from those politicians oozing ambition from every pore, may be Mahan’s best commendation for higher office.

If and when.

Many travellers may not be aware of the risks they are taking while connecting to free airport Wi-Fi networks, experts have warned.

With the summer getaway season at its peak, countless holidaymakers are descending on airports and relying on the complimentary Wi-Fi offered in public areas. Yet many are unwittingly exposing themselves to severe danger before they’ve even stepped foot on their aircraft.

Whilst complimentary airport Wi-Fi may appear to be a handy method of killing time, specialists are cautioning it could leave users vulnerable to some of the most perilous cyber risks.

Many users link up to public networks without hesitation to browse emails, access banking apps, or secure eleventh-hour accommodation.

But according to the experts, that swift connection could pave the way for highly sensitive data to be pilfered, reports the Express.

Geoff Pestell, CEO at broadband comparison site Fibre Compare, revealed: “One of the greatest risks of joining public Wi-Fi networks is the potential for identity theft.”

He emphasised that linking to unsecured airport networks can enable cybercriminals to harvest a vast array of personal details, from your whereabouts and journey records to financial data, including banking and credit card particulars, and even fundamental yet sensitive information like your name, contact details, and marital status.

And this isn’t the sole worry, as public Wi-Fi hotspots, frequently unencrypted, leave your internet activity entirely vulnerable.

“Many users are unaware that public Wi-Fi networks often do not encrypt the data you transmit,” Geoff observed.

This means that strangers on the same network can spy on your internet use, potentially capturing everything from your login details to private emails.

There’s also the risk of malware and phishing. Cybercriminals can push harmful software onto devices through fake download links or trick travellers into filling out fraudulent forms disguised as legitimate portals.

“If you use public Wi-Fi networks, hackers may also be able to infect your computer, mobile phone, or other connected devices with malicious software,” warned Geoff.

In the aftermath of a magnitude 5.7 earthquake, the five men were accused of robbing damaged homes in the Santa Maria de Jesus municipality.

Five men have been lynched after rural community members accused them of robbing damaged homes following an earthquake that struck Guatemala and caused widespread damage.

Police spokesperson Cesar Mateo told the AFP news agency on Friday night that the men were accused of using the dark of the night to break into homes following the tremors, which led people to sleep in shelters or with relatives.

“While it’s true that robbery is illegal, lynching is also a crime,” Mateo said.

Guatemala’s Ministry of the Interior said residents of Santa Maria de Jesus municipality searched for the men late on Thursday and then blocked authorities who tried to detain and take them away.

Residents beat the men with sticks and stones and then burned them in the community, which lies in the Sacatepequez department southwest of the capital.

Santa Maria de Jesus was the worst-affected area by the earthquake that created tremors of up to 5.7 magnitude. At least seven people were killed across Guatemala after Tuesday’s earthquake.

Vigilante violence is a recurrent response to criminals who are not prosecuted in Guatemala.

According to a local civil society organisation, between 2008 and 2020, vigilante justice left 361 people dead and 1,396 injured in the country.

The earthquake left Santa Maria de Jesus, home to an Indigenous Mayan community, without power, while access to roads was cut off by landslides.

The government flew in humanitarian aid to Santa Maria de Jesus to help residents.

The disaster coordination agency, Conred, which has been evaluating the level of damage in affected areas, said a delivery of solar lamps, buckets, mats, mosquito nets, blankets and kitchen kits has been received from the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

In a separate statement on Friday, the agency said it was continuing to assist, including the “mobilisation and delivery of humanitarian aid” to parts of the country.