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It is also a sign of how sloppy the thieves were in the end, after pulling off what seemed like a well-planned robbery in one of the world’s most famous museums in broad daylight. Among the objects they left behind in their haste to evade the police and security guards were a glove, a crown that they dropped, and the truck with the mechanical ladder, which they had tried unsuccessfully to set on fire.
Investigators have processed 150 forensic samples related to the crime, from the scene and from objects the thieves left behind. All three people who were arrested already had their DNA on file because of their criminal histories, mostly for theft.
“I am convinced that we would not have found these people if the DNA that was found at this theft hadn’t matched with this database,” said Gaëtan Poitevin, a criminal lawyer in Marseille whose master’s thesis was on France’s DNA database.
How does the DNA database work?
France’s database, the National Automated Genetic Fingerprint File, had 4.4 million DNA profiles at the end of last year. Those profiles have been collected over almost three decades from people suspected or convicted of crimes, as well as people killed in natural disasters.
It has become a staple of police investigations, with forensic investigators collecting bits of saliva, sweat, hair, skin, semen, and blood, then sending them to be sequenced at public and certified private labs. The labs send the results to be compared to the contents of the enormous database, looking for exact matches.
“In just a few hours now, we can have a positive DNA result,” said Olivier Halnais, the head of the national union of forensic police officers.
How did France’s DNA database start?
France began its DNA database in 1998, after the serial killer Guy Georges, known as the “Eastern Paris killer,” was finally arrested.
Mr. Georges had been imprisoned for assaulting a woman with a weapon, and the police collected his DNA. But France had no centralized database at the time, so officers were unable to check his DNA against that found at the scenes of five murders of women who had also been raped.
After his release from prison, Mr. Georges went on to rape and kill two more women. He was arrested again and eventually convicted of the murders of seven women. The case spurred the creation of a national DNA database.
Initially, the database contained only the DNA of sexual offenders. But, over the next five years, it grew to include people convicted — or merely suspected — of a much wider range of crimes, including murder, terrorism, drug trafficking, assault, theft, and property damage.
The process of being removed from the DNA database is so onerous that few pursue it, Mr. Poitevin said. Those who refuse to give a DNA sample face at least a year in prison and a fine of at least 15,000 euros, almost $17,400.
From 2018 to 2022, an average of 680 people a year were convicted of refusing to provide DNA, less than one percent of people charged each year, according to the Justice Ministry.
“Among my clients, absolutely zero refuse, because for them, it’s an admission of guilt,” said Mr. Poitevin.
As a result, the database has continued to grow. And French investigators can check the collected DNA against more than 30 other European national DNA databases, as well as others, including one kept by the United States.
The database and cold cases
While the databank is used regularly for basic investigations, it has proved particularly useful in cold cases.
Investigators said DNA linked Dominique Pelicot, who was convicted last year of drugging his wife, Gisele, and inviting dozens of men to rape her, to an attempted rape committed more than two decades earlier. The 1999 attempted rape case had been dormant for years until the police arrested Mr. Pelicot in 2020, collected his DNA sample, and ran it through the database, matching it to long-held samples collected at the crime scene. (Mr. Pelicot has been indicted in the attempted rape.)
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Members of a forensic team inspect a window at the site where burglars broke into the Louvre and made off with eight of France’s historic crown jewels last month. Credit…Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters
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