Overview
- Three suspects—the palace silver steward, his antiquarian companion, and a 30‑year‑old collector—were arrested in the Loiret and Versailles and placed under judicial supervision pending a February 26 hearing.
- Searches recovered the vast majority of roughly one hundred classified items, with discoveries in a professional locker, a car that included Poliakoff plates, and at a home.
- One suspect acknowledged the facts in custody, the collector was barred from returning to his Louvre guard job, and the silver steward has resigned.
- The scheme allegedly ran for months to over two years by falsifying inventories and channeling pieces to a buyer found via Facebook groups, with attempts to sell through auction sites and a resale app.
- Experts describe the pieces as historically significant and often marked for the Élysée, with individual items valued from a few thousand to tens of thousands of euros.