partially

The suspects face charges for theft committed by an organised gang and criminal conspiracy, prosecutor says.

Two men arrested over a jewel heist at France’s Louvre Museum are to be charged with theft and criminal conspiracy after “partially admitting to the charges”, Paris Public Prosecutor Laure Beccuau has said.

The suspects were to be brought before magistrates with a view to “charging them with organised theft, which carries a 15-year prison sentence”, and criminal conspiracy, punishable by 10 years, Beccuau told a press conference on Wednesday. The jewellery stolen on October 19 has “not yet been recovered”, Beccuau said.

Two suspects in the Louvre jewel heist have “partially” admitted their participation and are believed to be the men who forced their way into the world’s most visited museum, a Paris prosecutor said.

Beccuau said that the two suspects face preliminary charges of theft committed by an organised gang and criminal conspiracy, and are expected to be held in provisional detention. She did not give details about their comments.

It took thieves less than eight minutes to steal the jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102m), shocking the world. The thieves forced open a window, cut into cases with power tools, and fled with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.

One suspect is a 34-year-old Algerian national who has been living in France since 2010, Beccuau said. He was arrested Saturday night at Charles de Gaulle Airport as he was about to fly to Algeria with no return ticket. He was living in Paris’s northern suburb of Aubervilliers and was known to police mostly for road traffic offences, Beccuau said.

The other suspect, 39, was arrested Saturday night at his home, also in Aubervilliers.

“There is no evidence to suggest that he was about to leave the country,” Beccuau said. The man was known to police for several thefts, and his DNA was found on one of the glass cases where the jewels were displayed and on items the thieves left behind, she added.

Prosecutors had faced a late Wednesday deadline to charge the suspects, release them or seek a judge’s extension.

Jewels not yet recovered

The jewels have not been recovered, Beccuau said.

“These jewels are now, of course, unsellable … Anyone who buys them would be guilty of concealment of stolen goods,” she warned. “It’s still time to give them back.”

Earlier Wednesday, French police acknowledged major gaps in the Louvre’s defences – turning the dazzling daylight theft into a national reckoning over how France protects its treasures.

Paris Police Chief Patrice Faure told Senate lawmakers that ageing systems and slow-moving fixes left weak seams in the museum.

“A technological step has not been taken,” he said, noting that parts of the video network are still analog, producing lower-quality images that are slow to share in real time.

A long-promised revamp “will not be finished before 2029–2030”, he said.

Faure also disclosed that the Louvre’s authorisation to operate its security cameras quietly expired in July and wasn’t renewed – a paperwork lapse that some see as a symbol of broader negligence.

The police chief said officers “arrived extremely fast” after the theft, but added the lag in response occurred earlier in the chain – from first detection, to museum security, to the emergency line, to police command.

Faure and his team said the first alert to police came not from the Louvre’s alarms, but from a cyclist outside who dialed the emergency line after seeing helmeted men with a basket lift.

Within 24 hours of the Louvre heist, a museum in eastern France reported the theft of gold and silver coins after finding a smashed display case.

Last month, thieves broke into Paris’s Natural History Museum and stole gold nuggets worth more than $1.5m. A Chinese woman has been detained and charged in relation to the theft.

ATLANTA — Seven days ago, Jacob Misiorowski was really only known by the most die-hard of baseball fans.

And even then, he was far from any sort of household commodity.

“I don’t even know who I’m pitching against,” future Hall of Fame Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw said last week, a day before squaring off against the Milwaukee Brewers’ rookie phenom who had made only four career starts prior.

“Is that the guy who twisted his ankle on the mound, the ‘Twisted-His-Ankle’ guy?’” Kershaw added, able only to recall a widely shared clip of Misiorowski having to exit his MLB debut a month earlier amid five hitless innings after turning his ankle on the downslope of the hill.

“I know he throws hard. I saw a couple highlights,” Kershaw continued.

But, as far as the 23-year-old’s reputation was concerned, that was it — both to Kershaw, and most casual observers of the sport.

Then, however, came the game that changed everything — for Misiorowski, Major League Baseball and the conversation around this year’s All-Star festivities in Atlanta.

Last Tuesday, Misiorowski had his official coming-out party with a dominant six-inning, one-run, 12-strikeout gem against the mighty Dodgers — easily the most electrifying outing of the young flamethrower’s nascent career.

Days later, in a move that stunned the sport, Misiorowski was unexpectedly added to the National League All-Star team — an immediately controversial move given his one total month of big-league service time.

On Monday, at an All-Star media day event near Truist Park in Atlanta, Misiorowski’s presence was still dominating story lines at the Midsummer Classic, especially after several members of the Philadelphia Phillies (who felt two of their pitchers, Cristopher Sánchez and Ranger Suarez, were more deserving of All-Star nods even though they wouldn’t have pitched in the game) derided Misiorowski’s selection over the weekend as a “joke” and public relations stunt by the league.

It was the first question Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who will helm the National League team after winning last year’s World Series, fielded at a Monday afternoon news conference at the Coca-Cola Roxy Theater.

And when Misiorowski took his seat at media day, he was immediately peppered with questions about the backlash to his inclusion, and how he felt about people who argued he wasn’t deserving of being in the game — especially his NL teammates from the Phillies.

“I mean, they’re not happy,” Misiorowski said with an awkward smile. “But they’re not upset with me. It’s nothing I did. So they were all nice to me. The clubhouse has been good.”

For all the visceral takes and viral reactions the Misiorowski story has generated in recent days, chances are it will blow over by the time Tuesday’s game rolls around.

Roberts confirmed Misiorowski will pitch in the contest, probably somewhere in the middle innings.

And while he said Misiorowski’s selection, coupled with the withdrawals from numerous other NL All-Star pitchers, required a “deeper conversation” about how the game could be improved, he added that he was all for having Misiorowski take part in this year’s event.

“For this young kid to be named an All-Star, I couldn’t be more excited for him,” Roberts said. “It’s gonna be electric. The fans, the media, you’re gonna love it. So for me, it’s an easy answer, because if it brings excitement, attention to our game, then I’m all about it.”

If it wasn’t for Roberts’ team, the Misiorowski drama might have never happened.

Entering his start against the Dodgers last week, Misiorowski had a 3.20 ERA, was coming off a five-run, 3 ⅔ inning clunker against the New York Mets, and (despite his 100-plus mph fastball and wicked repertoire of breaking pitches) was nowhere near the All-Star picture.

Even internally, he acknowledged, he was still getting comfortable in the majors.

But in that game against the Dodgers, Misiorowski bounced back from a leadoff home run from Shohei Ohtani by giving up just three other hits. He mowed through the Dodgers’ league-leading offense with triple-digit fastballs and upper-90s mph sliders, which Dodgers catcher Will Smith called the nastiest current pitch in the sport. And he emerged with a newfound sense of belonging at the big-league level.

“That’s one of those games you look back on and you’re like, ‘OK, now we go,’” Misiorowski said Monday. “Now it starts.’”

Afterward, no one praised the young right-hander more than Kershaw, who started his postgame remarks about Misiorowski by quipping, “I know him now, huh?”

And now, a week later, so too does the rest of the baseball world; with Misiorowski’s dismantling of the Dodgers helping to thrust him into a spotlight he could have never imagined seven days earlier.

“I think it was just one of those things that, when it happened, it’s not really anything I’ve done,” he said. “I’m not gonna say no to MLB about coming to the game, so it is what it is.”