Over at Hot Air, Josh Hammer writes that the "Louvre Heist Encapsulates a Western Culture That Will Not Defend Itself," explaining:
The utterly humiliating inability of French authorities to either prevent the theft of the literal crown jewels or promptly arrest the perpetrators after the fact is the most poetic possible way to demonstrate a point that has come up in so many of my conversations this week: At best, European political and cultural elites have no interest in protecting and preserving their culture; and at worst, they have an interest in seeing that culture replaced root and branch.
At the time he wrote his article, none of the thieves had been caught. Now that two of the thieves are in custody, we get a sense that the theft is more than just incompetence on the part of the DEI female led Louvre bureaucracy, but might also be another example of cultural enrichment. NBC News reports that at least some of the thieves left behind physical evidence, including gloves, a walkie-talkie, a vest, and a can of gasoline, from which French authorities were able to find DNA traces. These traces led to the arrest of two career criminals both from Aubervilliers, a suburb in northeast Paris, with a large migrant population. (However, The Art Newspaper says that the two were from Seine-Saint-Denis north of the capital, another department with a high immigrant population). A police spokesman "said that police decided to move in on Saturday when it became clear that one suspect was planning to flee to Algeria. He was arrested at Charles de Gaulle airport 40 minutes before the flight was due to take off." The BBC reports that the other suspect was headed to Mali.
ABC News reports that "[o]ne of the suspects has dual citizenship in France and Mali, and the other is a dual citizen of France and Algeria, investigators said, adding that both were already known to police from past burglary cases." The Art Newspaper confirms that the suspect trying to flee to Algeria was a French-Algerian citizen.
Two additional suspects remain on the run.
Ahhh, France.
ReplyDeleteDon't you mean: "Awww, France."
DeleteHa!
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