{"id":135625,"date":"2025-11-15T02:09:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:09:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/135625\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T02:09:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:09:13","slug":"cousin-of-suspected-robber-in-louvre-museum-heist-speaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/135625\/","title":{"rendered":"Cousin of Suspected Robber in Louvre Museum Heist Speaks Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA cousin of one of the suspected robbers in the Louvre<\/a> heist recently spoke out in an interview with ABC News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tA man identified as Mehdy, who claims to be the cousin of one of the suspected Louvre robbers, told ABC News\u2018 James Longman in an exclusive new interview for the television special \u201cImpact x Nightline\u201d that his cousin \u201cwas someone who did small jobs\u201d and \u201cworked in a place where they sell fruit, things like that, who tried to get by. And who had kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFour suspects were arrested in connection to the heist<\/a> last month, with one still believed to be at large. Of the four, one was a taxi driver and the other a delivery man and garbage collector, who was arrested at Paris\u2019 Charles de Gaulle Airport while trying to flee on a one-way flight to Algeria. The other two are a man and woman who have been identified as domestic partners with two children together; the woman was recently released from police custody and placed under judicial supervision on Wednesday. The thieves are reported to be locals of Seine-Saint-Denis, a suburb of Paris.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Youngsters<\/p>\n

\n\tAs the investigation into the heist continues, the public has been learning more about the identities of the suspects, including one who was identified earlier this month as Abdoulaye N.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Mehdy didn\u2019t offer any insight as to why his cousin may have robbed the Louvre, he expressed some words of wisdom for him: \u201cBut if I had to tell him something before he went to do that, really, if he truly did it and I speak in the conditional, I would have told him, you know these jewels, they belong to you, it\u2019s your heritage, if you want them you just have to go to the museum, you don\u2019t need to go through the window or anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sunday, October 19, around 9:30 a.m.,\u00a0robbers broke into the Parisian museum\u2018s Apollo Gallery using a cherry picker and an angle grinder to\u00a0steal nine pieces<\/a>\u00a0of jewelry\u00a0worth an estimated $102 million\u00a0<\/a>in less than eight minutes. CCTV footage captured the thieves descending from a gallery window before fleeing the area on scooters.\u00a0One of the nine pieces, a crown once belonging to Empress Eug\u00e9nie, was subsequently recovered outside the Louvre.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn\u00a0a hearing with the French senate<\/a>,\u00a0Louvre Museum<\/a>\u00a0director Laurence des Cars\u00a0said that alarms functioned properly and went off during the heist.\u00a0But she admitted that the museum has \u201cvery inadequate\u201d and \u201coutdated\u201d security systems in place.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough the Louvre recently rolled out a set of emergency security measures<\/a>, the full extent of the recommended security changes, according to a French national audit, are \u201cnot expected to be finished until 2032.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike many in France who view the robbery as a wound to national pride, the theft also reportedly upset Medhy: \u201cIt hurts my French heritage, Napoleon\u2019s story,\u201d he said. Adding, \u201cIt pisses me off for my country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe remaining eight missing artifacts have yet to be recovered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A cousin of one of the suspected robbers in the Louvre heist recently spoke out in an interview…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[92789,92790,442,498,499,500,501,156,7912,81047,92791,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-135625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-heist","9":"tag-art-theft","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-louvre","17":"tag-louvre-museum","18":"tag-louvre-robbery","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}