Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The director of the Louvre in Paris was expected to appear before the French Senate on Wednesday to answer questions about a heist of $102 million in jewels that shuttered the museum for two days.
The Louvre Museum reopened on Wednesday, two days after a group of four thieves used a basket lift mounted to a truck to enter the facility through a second-floor balcony window and make off with historic jewelry. The loot included crowns, necklaces, tiaras and brooches worth much more than the individual value of the gems and precious metal were the thieves to melt down the pieces to sell the parts.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said a team of about 100 investigators was racing to find the thieves before they could break apart the jewels and sell them, according to NBC News.
"The wrongdoers who took these gems won't earn 88 million euros if they had the very bad idea of disassembling these jewels," Beccuau told French broadcaster RTL. "We can perhaps hope that they'll think about this and won't destroy these jewels without rhyme or reason."
The director of the Louvre, Laurence des Cars, was scheduled to answer questions from the French Senate's culture committee Wednesday. French Senator Nathalie Goulet told the BBC that the security alarm in the Apollo Gallery where the theft took place had recently broken. She said police were working to determine if it had been deactivated during the theft.
