A Paris appeals court has refused to release Rachid H., 40, one of the men accused in the audacious October 2025 break-in at the Louvre. The court ruled that he will remain in pre-trial detention, where he has been held since November 2025, as investigators continue to pick apart the contradictory accounts of the alleged accomplices.

The robbery took place on the morning of Sunday, October 19, 2025. A four-person gang used a truck-mounted motorized ladder to reach a second-floor window of the Louvre's Apollo Gallery, smashed two display cases and grabbed eight pieces of crown jewelry valued at roughly $100 million. A crown once owned by Empress Eugenie was dropped in the thieves' rush to leave, and the gang escaped on two motorized scooters. The entire job took about seven minutes, and the jewels have never been recovered.

Two suspects were arrested within a month: Abdoulaye N., 40, an unlicensed taxi driver with prior robbery convictions who posted motocross stunt videos online, and Ghelamallah A., 36, an unemployed Algerian national. Both have admitted taking part, but investigators say their testimony has raised as many questions as it answered. In June they told investigators that an unnamed sponsor recruited them just days before October 19, and that the men arrested after them — including Rachid H. — had nothing to do with the crime. According to their account, the person who gave the orders was inside the Louvre with the robbers and remains at large.

Rachid H. was detained on suspicion of supplying the gang with keys to a parking facility in Aubervilliers. He acknowledged handing keys to two people but denied any knowledge of the robbery, and his defense notes that his fingerprints were found neither on the truck nor in the parking lot where the jewels were allegedly passed to an unidentified individual.