Jewellery stolen from the Louvre in Paris in a daylight robbery on Sunday (19 October) has been valued at €88 million, according to a French public prosecutor.
During the seven-minute raid of the Louvre's Galerie d'Apollon, thieves stole eight pieces of jewellery, including a diamond and emerald necklace that Emperor Napoleon gave to his wife.
Other items taken from the Louvre include a jewelled headband with nearly 2,000 diamonds, and a necklace containing eight sapphires and 631 diamonds.
Via the BBC, French magistrate Laure Beccuau told RTL radio that a Louvre museum curator had estimated the losses at an "extraordinary" €88m.
She added the thieves would not get the equivalent sum if they had "the very bad idea of melting down these jewels".
The jewellery was taken by four masked thieves, who used a truck equipped with a mechanical lift to gain access to the gallery via a balcony close to the River Seine.
Investigators working on the case
The group entered the museum by cutting through glass panes with a battery-powered disc cutter, before threatening the guards, smashing the glass display cases, and taking the jewels.
Around 60 investigators are now working on the case, although it is most likely that the jewellery has already been broken down and sold.
Chris Marinello, the chief executive of Art Recovery International, told BBC World Service's Newshour programme: "There is a race going on right now."
He said the thieves "are not going to keep [the items] intact, they are going to break them up, melt down the valuable metal, recut the valuable stones and hide evidence of their crime".
The French police "know that in the next 24 or 48 hours, if these thieves are not caught, those pieces are probably long gone," Marinello added.
"They may catch the criminals but they won't recover the jewels," he said.
Images courtesy of the Louvre
