A 24-year-old Chinese woman has been formally charged in an internationally shocking theft at the Muséum national d 'Histoire naturelle in Paris, France, according to French media reports. She was suspected of sneaking into the museum in the early morning of September 16th and stealing precious natural gold nuggets with a total weight of nearly 6 kilograms, which were worth more than 1.5 million euros (about 12 million yuan).

The National Museum of Natural History of Paris, located in the Jardin des Plantes in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, is a world-renowned research and exhibition institution with a large collection of geological and mineral specimens. Among them, the Galerie de Géologie et de Minéralogie exhibited a number of rare gold nuggets. These gold nuggets are not ordinary gold bars, but unrefined natural gold alloys, containing gold and silver and other metals, with unique shapes and extremely high scientific and historical significance.

The theft occurred in the early hours of September 16, 2025.

The day was a Monday and the museum closed at 6 p.m. the day before. Surveillance video shows a woman dressed in black sneaking into the museum before closing and hiding in the exhibition hall. Instead of breaking into the door by violence, she used the chaos before closing the museum to "lock herself" in the museum, which is a "inside ghost" technique common in museum theft.

At about 1 o¡¯clock in the morning, she began to act.

She used a disqueuse, a high-speed rotating cutting tool, to cut two safety doors in the museum. These doors are made of steel and several centimeters thick. The cutting process makes a loud noise. However, because the museum is located in a relatively remote botanical garden and no one notices it in the early morning, her actions have not been discovered.

After the cutting, she entered the Gallery of Geology and Mineralogy and headed straight to the glass showcase where the gold nuggets were stored.

The exhibition cabinet uses an anti-bombing glass design, installed an infrared sensor and vibration alarm, but the suspect is well prepared. She removes the carried oxygen ethanol welding gun (chalumeau, a high-temperature flame cutting tool) with a flame temperature of up to 3000 degrees Celsius, melting the glass in minutes. The entire destruction process lasts less than 10 minutes and triggers no alarm.

The remains of the site include a corner grinder, a screwdriver, three gas tanks for welded guns and a saw, which later became key material evidence.

Then she took out four major pieces of gold from the drawer, weighing a total of about 6 kilograms.

Bolivian goldDonated to the French Academy of Sciences in the 18th century, the specimen, weighing about several hundred grams, is one of the earliest geological samples of the gold mine in Europe, documenting the formation of the gold mine in the Andes mountains of South America.

The Ural Mountains.: It was presented to the museum by Tsar Nicholas I of Russia in 1833 and weighs about 1 kilogram. The surface of the gold nugget is covered with natural crystals, representing a typical form of gold deposits in Eurasia and was used for geological research in the 19th century.

California goldThe sample was discovered during the late "golden heat" period in the middle of the 19th century, weighing about 1.5 kilograms. The surface is attached to sand gold particles, a living fossil of the geological history of the western United States, and has been a focus exhibition in the museum's "Treasure of the Earth".

Australia gold nugget: A giant gold nugget discovered in western Australia in 1990, weighing more than 3 kilograms, is the treasure of the gallery's town hall. Its unique shape is like an irregular "golden bread", containing silver alloy inside, and its scientific value is extremely high.

The suspect took the gold with a backpack and wiped the scene with a cloth before leaving, trying to mask fingerprints.

At about 4 o¡¯clock in the morning, she escaped from the back door of the museum, and surveillance showed that she watched the surroundings for a long time, making sure she left without a patrol guard.

French police later confirmed that they did not interfere temporarily, but that they investigated the museum¡¯s security arrangements at least a week in advance, including closing hours, guard patrol routes and weaknesses in the cabin.

The theft was not discovered until 8 a.m. on September 16.

A cleaner was cleaning the geological gallery when he found fragments of glass and metal residue scattered on the ground. She immediately reported it to the curator, who checked the display cabinet and confirmed that the gold nugget was missing. The museum quickly sounded the alarm, and Paris police and experts from the Ministry of Culture rushed to the scene. Preliminary investigation showed that the thieves did not touch other exhibits, such as meteorites or crystal specimens.

The suspect was a 24-year-old Chinese citizen, born in January 2001 and currently residing in Paris. She held a short-term tourist visa and arrived in France at the end of August 2025. The Paris Prosecutor¡¯s Office did not disclose her name to protect the investigation, but according to reliable reports she did not have a fixed career in France and was only registered as a ¡°freelancer.¡± Police investigation showed that she had studied short-term language courses in Paris but soon left school and turned frequently to tourist attractions and museums.

Her identity is locked through video surveillance and digital traces.

Although the museum¡¯s closed-way television did not cover all the dead corners, it captured her side faces and body features. Police used facial recognition technology to compare her with entry records to confirm her Chinese citizenship. Following tracking through mobile phone signals, she was found to appear several times around the museum a week before the crime, including a gold shop for buying cutting tools and a rental of industrial equipment for welding guns.

Her mobile phone call records show that she keeps close contact with at least two people, one of whom is suspected to be active in the Chinese community in Paris and the other in Chinese mainland. Prosecutors charged her with alleged "organized theft" (vol en bande organisée) and "criminal conspiracy" (association de malfaiteurs).

Police suspect she is not a soloist, but a member of a network of theft. French art crime experts point out that in recent years many European museum theft cases have been linked to international crime gangs, especially against commodity theft, which tends to sell artifacts in the black market after melting.

The suspect's motive has not yet been fully clarified, but police speculated that it was related to financial pressure. Her bank records in Paris show that her account balance is less than 1000 euros and she has made multiple small remittances to China. Some media speculated that she might have been hired by an underground gold dealer to smelt gold nuggets and smuggle them back to Asia.

After the crime, the suspect fled quickly from France. On the afternoon of September 16, she took the high-speed train from Paris to Madrid, Spain, and then moved to Barcelona. Police issued a European arrest warrant (mandat d'arrêt européen) through Interpol, accusing her of carrying garbage across the border.

On September 30, she was arrested during security at Barcelona airport. At that time, she was preparing to board a flight to Shanghai, China, with about 1kg of molten gold nugget fragments hidden in her hand luggage. The nuggets have been partially deformed by heating and covered with a layer of black oxide in an attempt to disguise themselves as industrial waste.

Spanish customs officials found abnormalities in X-ray scans and smelled the burnt smelting of metal after unpacking the luggage. The suspect tried to discard the package but was overpowered on the spot.

The scene of the arrest was tense and short. She wore casual clothes and carried a fake passport, but the fingerprint comparison quickly revealed her identity. Spanish police found chat records with contacts in Paris in her mobile phone, including a blurry photo of gold nuggets. The Barcelona Procuratorate confirmed that these molten gold fragments matched the alloy composition of the stolen gold nuggets from the museum: about 85% gold content, 15% silver, and trace copper and iron impurities, which are typical characteristics of natural gold.

On the same day, she was extradited to France.On arrival in Paris on October 13, she was immediately questioned by the judge d'instruction.

Prosecutor Beko said: ¡°She tried to destroy the evidence when she was arrested, but technical analysis proved her crime,¡± and she was detained in the form of a ¡°detention provisoire¡± at Fleury-Mérogis Prison in Paris, awaiting a formal trial.

According to French law, organized theft can be sentenced to a maximum of 15 years in prison.

In addition to the 1 kg of gold she carried with her, the remaining about 5 kg of gold was unknown. Police suspect that parts of it had been melted and sold through the dark net. Interpol has issued a warning to Asian customs to monitor the gold smuggling channels. Some experts believe that the gold may have entered the black market in the Middle East or Southeast Asia, and the value will double.

The case comes as France is experiencing a "dark week for museums". In early September, the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris lost porcelain worth millions of euros; In the middle of the year, the Natural History Museum was attacked; On October 19th, the Louvre jewel thief escaped in broad daylight and rode off on a motorcycle. These events shocked the French cultural community, with a total value of more than 30 million euros.

In an interview, Emmanuel Skoulios, director of the Natural History Museum, said: ¡°These pieces of gold are not only wealth but also a witness to the history of the earth.

The suspect's attorney said she would deny all charges and filed for bail. The trial is expected to start in early 2026. Paris police promised: "We will recover every gram of gold and protect the soul of French culture."