Chinese Suspect Charged Over €1.5 Million Gold Heist at Paris Museum

By Staff, Agencies

French prosecutors have charged a Chinese national in connection with a €1.5 million gold theft last month from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, Franceinfo reported Tuesday.

Museum staff discovered the disappearance of nearly 6 kilograms of gold on September 16. The missing items included historic nuggets from Bolivia, Russia’s Ural region, and California, as well as a single 5-kilogram piece found in Australia in 1990.

Investigators found evidence of a break-in through two doors that had been cut open with an angle grinder.

Security footage showed a small woman dressed in black slipping through one of the openings shortly after 1 a.m. She used a blowtorch to break a display case before leaving the museum around 4 a.m.

The suspect reportedly disguised herself with a beekeeper-style hat and veil. Tools recovered at the scene included saws, a screwdriver, and gas canisters.

Police traced her movements through phone data, determining that she fled France the same day. She was later arrested at Barcelona Airport carrying nearly one kilogram of melted gold.

The heist is part of a growing trend of high-value museum thefts across Europe. In recent months, Napoleonic jewelry worth over €88 million was stolen from the Louvre, a $650,000 Picasso disappeared en route to a Spanish museum, and ancient gold artifacts were taken from museums in Cairo and the Netherlands.