Catherine Field: France Correspondent on the arrests of those involved in the Louvre heist

The Louvre heist seems to have been carried out not by an organised crime syndicate, but by petty criminals.  

Four thieves last month raided the world’s most-visited art museum, in daylight, stealing crown jewels worth an estimated $178 million in just seven minutes. 

French police arrested two men the following week and over the weekend a man and a woman in their 30s, living in a northern Paris suburb. 

France Correspondent Catherine Field told Mike Hosking the criminals allegedly left behind a fair bit of DNA evidence. 

Those who were arrested, Field says, already had criminal records, which meant Police were able to locate them.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Catherine, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I'm fine? Thank you? Make now this.

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Sixth dole of the Sheen thing, sheenshine, how is it?
Do you know that the sixth dole thing only appears
to be a thing in France? How did that happen?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Who knows? Mike, who knows? But it really could not
have come at a worse time for Sheen. This sort
of huge e commerce online retailer was due on Wednesday.
What is due on Wednesday to open its first physical store.
It's going to be in central Paris, the heart of Paris,

(00:36):
right opposite Paristown Hall. So it was already you know,
giving a lot of publicity here because there's been a
lot of questions about it, the way it operates, not
just the working conditions, but also the environmental impact of
this fast fashion that it creates. So yeah, over the

(00:56):
weekend it emerged that in France this Shine was selling
childlike sex dolls. Now we've seen pictures of them. It's
a dole around the size of a one year old girl.
This girl is clutching a teddy bear and there was
also some sexually explicit captions to this advertisement. Now consumer

(01:20):
watchdog went crazy. You said, it's against the law. You
cannot sell child porn pornography, you can't sell sex dolls
online in France. And now we've got the finance minister
who has said that if this happens again then the
company will be banned from France. I mean, it seems big, Mike.
But here's the thing. France has already find this company

(01:42):
three times in twenty twenty five. It's been a total
of three hundred and eighty million New Zealand dollars in fines,
failing to comply with online cookie legislation, false advertising and
misleading information, and not declaring presence of plastic microbes and
Sevic's products. So already was looking bad. Wasn't going to

(02:05):
be an easy opening. The other point, Mike is I
don't know if you have ever been in Paris around
Christmas time. One of the big things about Christmas and
the stores at Central Paris are their Christmas window displays. Well,
Disney was meant to do the window display for the
shop where she was going to be having or is

(02:25):
supposed to have its store opened this Wednesday. Disney pulled
out and said it would have nothing to do with
this company. So what looked as though was going to
be a sort of easy entrance into the retail side
for this company. Now looks as though it's actually going
to have a few difficult weeks ahead of it.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Right the loave the petty criminal thing fascinates me because
that is quite something to ride your truck up to
the window and do what they did. I mean, just
reeks of organized crime and yet apparently.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Not so it did reagive it. But what, of course,
the Paris prosecutors say that changes it from your organized
crime to a group of petty criminals is what they
left behind the clues. Apparently they left behind a lot
of DNA. When they opened up those cabinets inside the loop,

(03:15):
a lot of DNA was left behind there. They left
behind tools. They don't forget, Mike. They dropped that famous crown,
Empress Eugenie's crown. They dropped that DNA all over that.
They dropped a scooter helmet that had DNA on that
as well. All sorts of DNA were left behind. And

(03:35):
it's only because, according to the prosecutor, so many of
the actual people who carried out this raid they had
criminal records, so parents police had their DNA on part,
which is why they're able to go and get them.
So what they're saying is your organized crime group would
not have made these simple mistakes that these guys made.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
What's the bigger deal. They've got them, they'll stickham and court,
presumably they'll get stuck in jail or actually finding what
they nicked.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Well, they'll be in jail for a while because this
will take a long and having to get to court.
But they really do want to get the jewels back
and Crown jewels back. The thing is, Mike, you know,
so many French people didn't even realize they had these
Crown jewels and so now everyone wants to see them again.
But you know, think back to that Kim Kardashian robbery

(04:28):
during Paris Fashion Week. They never found those jewels.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
No, they didn't. All right, Catherine, catch up, So appreciate
it very much, Catherine Field and France. For more from
the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
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