French police have arrested a 24-year-old Chinese woman for a theft at the Natural History Museum in Paris. Six kilograms of gold nuggets were stolen from there during the night of September 15-16. The woman was stopped by Spanish police on October 13 with a kilogram of molten gold. The theft is unrelated to the robbery at the Louvre.

These are turbulent days for police in Paris. The French capital was not only the scene of the art theft at the Louvre, but also of a gold theft at the Natural History Museum.

For these facts, we have to go back to Tuesday, September 16th, when a cleaner noticed a pile of debris in the museum that morning and alerted the curator. The curator quickly realized that the gold nuggets, normally displayed in the display case, had disappeared overnight.

This includes gold nuggets from Bolivia, Guyana, the Urals and California: a collection with historical and physical value, but also with a price tag of at least 600,000 euros.

"The worst part is that each of these specimens has an origin, history, and scientific value. The idea of them being melted down makes us desperate," a deputy director of the museum told TF1.

Grinding wheel and beekeeper's hat

Police reviewed security camera footage, which was, to say the least, remarkable:"We thought it was a circus artist moving through the museum," a detective told the French press."We saw a female silhouette, dressed all in black and with a beekeeper's hat covering her face."

Around 1 a.m., the woman allegedly used a sanding disc to cut a hole in the door, no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper. She then crawled through it.

Once inside the gallery, she broke open the display case containing the gold nuggets. Afterward, she seemed in no hurry to flee the museum."She kept a close eye on the area for a long time and left the crime scene around 4 a.m.," the prosecutor's office said.

At the airport

The suspect was arrested by Spanish police at Barcelona Airport on October 13. She was en route to China and allegedly had a kilogram of molten gold on her at the time of her arrest.

Last week, she was handed over to French authorities, who are now continuing their investigation. CCTV footage showed the woman was alone in the museum, but police haven't ruled out the possibility she might be working for a criminal organization.