A Chinese woman has been charged with the theft of six gold nuggets worth about 1.5 million euros ($1.75m; £1.3m) from the Museum of Natural History in Paris last month, French prosecutors have said.
The woman was arrested in Barcelona while trying to dispose of some melted gold, according to officials, and is being held in pre-trial detention.
Famous for its stuffed animals and bone collections, the museum is home to a mineralogy gallery, from which the gold was taken. Police found an angle-grinder and a blowtorch at the scene.
The museum's alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyber-attack, with the thieves apparently aware of this, French media reported at the time.
The thieves, clearly very experienced and well-informed, exploited a security flaw that had not been identified during the last audit conducted in 2024, a museum spokesperson told French newspaper Le Figaro.
Cleaners discovered the break-in when they arrived for work before dawn at the museum, which is part of the Sorbonne university and located near the Jardin des Plantes in central Paris.
The suspect was arrested by Spanish police on 30 September on a European arrest warrant and handed over to French authorities on the same day, officials said in a statement.
At the time of her arrest, she was in possession of around a kilogram of melted-down gold. Investigations are continuing, the statement added. It is believed she was preparing to leave for China.
One of the largest stolen nuggets, originally from Australia, weighs 5kg. At the current gold price, it would be worth around €585,000.
We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go, and with professional equipment, Emmanuel Skoulios, the museum director, told French broadcasters.
The charges come just days after thieves made off with priceless French crown jewels from the Louvre Museum in a separate, daring raid. On Sunday, professional thieves broke into the world's most-visited museum, stealing eight valued items before escaping on scooters. The theft took less than eight minutes, police said.
Experts indicated that stolen items are likely to be broken up and sold for a fraction of their worth, explaining the thieves' motives. This won't be their first heist, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand commented on the recent spike in museum burglaries.
At least four French museums, including the Louvre and the natural history museum, have reported robberies in recent months, raising significant concerns about security measures in cultural institutions across the country.
