Thieves have broken into Paris’s Natural History Museum and stolen gold samples valued at 600,000 euros ($700,000), the museum confirmed.
The Natural History Museum, located in the 5th district, is known for its dinosaur skeletons, stuffed animals, and its geology and mineralogy gallery.
The break-in was discovered on Tuesday morning. The intruders reportedly used an angle grinder and a blow torch to enter the riverside complex, which draws both Parisians and tourists.
“The theft concerns several specimens of native gold from the national collections held by the museum,” the museum’s press office told AFP.
“While the stolen specimens are valued at around 600,000 euros based on the price of raw gold, they nevertheless carry an immeasurable heritage value,” it added.
Native gold is a natural alloy of gold and silver in unrefined form.
A police source told the Parisien newspaper that the museum’s alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled by a cyber attack in July. The thieves appeared to know about the weakness.
“This incident comes at a critical time for cultural institutions and museums in particular. Several public collections have indeed been targeted by thefts in recent months,” the museum said.
The Adrien Dubouche National Museum in Limoges also suffered a break-in earlier this month, where thieves stole two dishes and a vase in Chinese porcelain valued at 6.5 million euros.
Last November, four men armed with axes and bats smashed display cases at the Cognacq-Jay museum in Paris, escaping with 18th-century works. The next day, jewellery worth several million euros was taken during an armed robbery at a museum in Saone-et-Loire.
(AFP)
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