As the hunt for the Louvre jewel thieves continues, approximately 100 investigators have turned to DNA evidence found at the crime scene to help bring the perpetrators to justice.
Investigators are looking into traces of DNA samples that were left on a helmet and gloves in the Apollo Gallery. It is unclear, however, if the DNA belongs to the suspects who made off with eight pieces of jewelry, NBC News reported.
NBC News also reported the emergence of a new video overnight that was filmed by a member of the public, capturing the thieves escaping from the museum. It shows two men, one in a yellow vest with a black mask and another clad in all black with a motorcycle helmet.
Audio from the film picked up the sound of a walkie-talkie with a voice saying in French, “Looks like the individuals are on scooters. They are leaving, they are leaving.” Law enforcement received roughly 4,500 cameras worth of footage, “in addition to some 38,000 interconnected cameras,” Parisian officials said in a news release on Thursday.
Robbers broke into the museum‘s Apollo Gallery on Sunday using a cherry picker and an angle grinder to steal in less than eight minutes nine pieces of jewelry (one of which was recovered outside of the museum shortly after it was dropped by the robbers) worth an estimated $102 million.
Though museum director Laurence des Cars said the alarms functioned properly at the time of the heist, the lack of camera footage in the gallery or eyewitnesses has led to heavy scrutiny of the Louvre’s security system. Staff had previously accused museum leadership of postponing security upgrades amid a staff shortage, and an audit of the Louvre leaked after the heist called the security “outdated.”
The Louvre reopened yesterday, but the Apollo Gallery is still closed in light of the ongoing investiagtion.
