Paris: Woman charged after 1.5m euros of gold stolen from museum

Prosecutors say the woman was arrested in Barcelona with around a kilogram of melted-down gold.

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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.