Woman, 24, Charged in Paris Museum's Gold Heist

UPDATE Oct 21, 2025 10:37 AM CDT

Amid the ongoing search for thieves who struck Paris' Louvre on Sunday, French prosecutors have some good news to announce: an arrest in last month's break-in at Paris' National Museum of Natural History. A 24-year-old woman from China stands charged with stealing roughly 13 pounds of gold nuggets from the museum around 1am on Sept. 16. Prosecutors say she left France that same day. She was allegedly arrested in Barcelona, Spain, while trying to dispose of 2 pounds of melted gold, the New York Times reports. The damages are estimated at $1.7 million, with nearly $60,000 more in property damage. Authorities are still trying to determine if there were accomplices.

Sep 17, 2025 8:15 AM CDT

Thieves have struck Paris' renowned Natural History Museum, stealing $700,000 worth of gold in a brazen heist that highlights a troubling trend targeting France's cultural treasures. Museum officials say the burglars broke in early Tuesday, using an angle grinder and blowtorch and swiped several specimens of native gold—naturally occurring alloys containing gold and silver, per CBS News. A police source reportedly told Le Parisien that the museum's alarm and surveillance systems had been taken offline by a cyberattack in July, giving the thieves a window to operate, per AFP. While the price tag for the pilfered items is based on the current price of raw gold, the museum notes the pieces hold "immeasurable heritage value."

"We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go, and with professional equipment," said museum director Emmanuel Skoulios, per AFP. The breach is hardly isolated. French museums have faced a string of audacious robberies in the last year. Earlier this month, the Adrien Dubouche National Museum in central France lost Chinese porcelain treasures worth more than $7 million, and on back-to-back days last November, thieves hit Paris' Cognacq-Jay Museum and another museum in Saone-et-Loire. The Natural History Museum's management acknowledged the recent thefts while noting the latest incident "comes at a critical time for cultural institutions and museums in particular."