A woman has been charged over €1.5 million in gold stolen from a museum

A Chinese woman has been accused of stealing six gold bars worth about 1.5 million euros ($1.75 million; £1.3 million) from the Natural History Museum in Paris last month, French prosecutors said.

The woman was arrested in Barcelona while trying to dispose of some molten gold, officials said, and has been remanded in custody.

Famous for its stuffed animals and bone collections, the museum is home to a mineralogical gallery from which the gold was taken. At the scene, the police found an angle grinder and a torch.

The museum’s alarm and surveillance systems were disabled by a cyber attack, which the thieves apparently knew about, French media reported at the time.

“The thieves, apparently very experienced and well-informed, took advantage of a security gap that was not identified during the last audit carried out in 2024,” a museum spokesman told French newspaper Le Figaro.

Cleaners discovered the break-in when they arrived for work before dawn at the museum, which is part of the Sorbonne University and is located near the Jardin des Plantes in central Paris.

The suspect was arrested by Spanish police on September 30 on a European arrest warrant and handed over to French authorities the same day, officials said in a statement.

At the time of her arrest, she was in possession of about a kilogram of melted gold. Investigations are ongoing, the message added. She is believed to have been preparing to leave for China.

One of the largest stolen nuggets, originating from Australia, weighs 5 kg. At the current price of gold, it would be worth around 585,000 euros.

“We are dealing with an extremely professional team that is fully aware of where they have to go and with professional equipment,” Emmanuel Scoulios, the museum’s director, told French media.

“It was absolutely not by chance that they went for these particular items,” he told France 2 television last month.

The charges come just days after thieves made off with priceless French crown jewels from the Louvre museum in a separate, daring raid.

“Professional” thieves broke into the world’s most visited museum on Sunday, stealing eight valuable items before fleeing on scooters. The action took less than eight minutes, the police said.

Experts told the BBC the items were likely to be broken up and sold for a fraction of their value.

“This won’t be their first robbery,” Dutch art detective Arthur Brandt said of the thieves on Monday.

“They’ve done things before, other burglaries. They’re confident and they thought ‘we can get away with it’ and they did.”

At least four French museums – including the Louvre and the Natural History Museum – have been looted in recent months, according to media reports.