France's museum crime wave continues with €4 million Lalique robbery

Burglars have stolen around 20 pieces of jewelry worth an estimated €4 million from the Lalique Museum in northeastern France, in a daring pre-dawn raid that comes just months after a high-profile jewel theft at the Louvre Museum in Paris.

A group of masked thieves broke into the museum in Wingen-sur-Moder at around 5:30 a.m. on July 5. The suspects forced open an entrance door before heading directly to the museum's jewelry gallery, where they smashed six display cases and fled with approximately 20 pieces, Le Monde reports.

"Around 20 pieces of jewelry were stolen. The loss is currently being assessed but could amount to several million euros, likely close to €4 million," a source close to the investigation said.

Another source familiar with the investigation said the stolen items were made of crystal rather than precious gemstones, meaning they could not be melted down for their raw materials.

The museum announced on its website that it would remain closed for several days following the burglary.

Investigators said the museum's alarm system was activated during the break-in, but the response was delayed.

"An alarm went off, but by the time the security company had completed its checks, it was a cleaning lady who arrived first on the scene and called the police," the source said.

The Lalique Museum, which opened in 2011 near the company's historic factory, is dedicated to renowned French Art Nouveau and Art Deco jeweler and glassmaker René Lalique. Its collection includes more than 650 works, ranging from Art Nouveau jewelry and Art Deco glass to contemporary crystal creations.

The burglary has sparked criticism of the museum's security arrangements. Christian Dorschner, mayor of Wingen-sur-Moder, expressed frustration over the handling of the incident.

"All the alarms went off, just as they should. And then with the security company, apparently, there was a major failure on their part: they didn't intervene right away, they didn't inform the gendarmes," he said.

Dorschner suggested the perpetrators had likely planned the operation carefully.

"They were surely well-informed to carry out this job in that way; they must be ... specialists," he said.

The Lalique Museum had been regarded as a "sensitive" site following last October's dramatic daylight robbery at the Louvre, where thieves escaped with more than €80 million worth of jewelry, including historic French crown jewels, in a raid that lasted less than eight minutes.

By Vafa Guliyeva