A 39-year-old man suspected of being part of the gang that staged the Louvre heist was remanded into custody on Tuesday, joining three others already in detention, French prosecutors said.
Investigators say the man, who was arrested a week ago, was the fourth and final member of the masked gang that carried out the daring raid on the world’s most-visited museum.
The jewellery they stole — worth an estimated $102 million — has not been recovered.
French authorities now have four suspects in custody, charged with organised theft and criminal conspiracy.
The 39-year-old man was born in the working-class Paris suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis and has six previous convictions, including for pimping and receiving stolen goods, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said last week.
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His lawyers, Menya Arab-Tigrine and Farida Cagniard, told AFP on Tuesday they opposed holding him on remand, arguing the solitary confinement ordered for him and the Fresnes jail he was placed in threatened his “human dignity”.
“At the moment, there is no evidence allowing one to say that he was at the scene (of the heist),” they added.
The October 19 robbery saw thieves park a truck with an extendable ladder below the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery housing the French crown jewels.
They clambered up, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut into glass display booths containing the treasures.
Investigators believe it was a four-man team, with two of them entering the gallery while the other two waited below. The four then fled on high-powered motor scooters.
A fifth suspect, a 38-year-old woman who is the partner of one of the men, has been charged with being an accomplice but was released under judicial supervision pending trial.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
