PARIS — The hunt was on Monday for the thieves still on the run after French police arrested the first suspects in the Louvre heist.
Two suspects with histories of jewel thefts had been tracked for days after their DNA was recovered from the museum and were arrested Saturday shortly before one of them was set to board a flight out of the country, a police official told NBC News.
The breakthrough came a week after robbers broke into the Galerie d’Apollon, threatening guards and drilling into display cases before escaping on scooters with eight of France’s crown jewels worth an estimated $102 million.
A major police operation has been underway to track down the thieves, who were captured fleeing on camera. But there was still no sign of the jewels themselves.
Police said DNA samples discovered at the crime scene helped identify the suspects.
"They left gloves, a walkie-talkie, a vest and a can of gasoline," Axel Ronde, spokesman for the French police union CFTC, said in an interview Monday.
"And that allowed my colleagues from the forensic team to find these DNA traces," he said.
Ronde added that the two arrested suspects are men in their 30s, who had prior convictions and were known to police as having previously targeted jewelry stores.
They are both from Aubervilliers, a suburb in northeast Paris, Ronde said. He said police decided to move in on Saturday when it became clear that one suspect was planning to flee to Algeria. He was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport 40 minutes before the flight was due to take off.
While police can hold suspects for up to 48 hours without charge, in organized crime investigations like this one, detention can be extended to 96 hours.
"I think there is going to be more arrests quickly," said Robert Wittman, a former FBI art crime investigator.
He added that the arrest of the first suspects would allow police to gather more evidence through searches of their homes and cellphone data.
While investigators worry that the thieves may melt down or dismantle the jewels to sell them off as soon as possible, there remains hope that the stolen artifacts can be recovered intact.
Wittman said the thieves may have good reason to preserve the jewels rather than destroy them right away.
"In places like France, and Europe, they can use those to get out of jail free," he said, adding that destroying the jewels would leave the thieves with no "bargaining tools" if they were arrested.
Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that investigators continued to search for the stolen jewels and the remaining suspects but that it was "too early" to provide the public with any more detail.
"I will release additional information at the end of this period of police custody,” she said, adding that she did not want to hinder the investigation.
Raf Sanchez, Carlo Angerer and Zacharie Petit reported from Paris and Elmira Aliieva from London.