Louvre jewel heist: Man who says he is a cousin of one suspect speaks out, as 4 arrested for robbery
Four arrests were made in connection with the heist at the Louvre last month, but the stolen crown jewels remain missing.
As the investigation into the robbery continues, authorities have yet to recover the missing jewels -- valued at $102 million -- even though four suspects have been charged in connection with the heist. Now, a man claiming to be a cousin of one of the suspects is speaking out.
Watch "Impact x Nightline: Finding the Louvre Jewels," Thursday, Nov. 13 on ABC, and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Mehdy, who says he is a cousin of one of the suspected Louvre robbers, told ABC News' James Longman in an exclusive new interview for "Impact x Nightline" that his cousin was working small jobs before being arrested for allegedly being involved in the heist.
"He was someone who did small jobs," Mehdy said. "Who worked in a place where they sell fruit, things like that, who tried to get by. And who had kids."
Mehdy added that the robbery made him angry.
"It hurts my French heritage, Napoleon’s story," he said. "It pisses me off for my country."
"But if I had to tell him something before he went to do that, really, if he truly did it and I speak in the conditional, I would have told him, you know these jewels, they belong to you, it’s your heritage, if you want them you just have to go to the museum, you don’t need to go through the window or anything," Mehdy added.
In a Franceinfo radio interview at the beginning of November, Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that four arrests were made in connection with the robbery, and "at least one person" remains at large.
Beccuau said the suspects in custody appear not to be associated with organized crime, as the first two suspects arrested were a taxi driver, 39, and a delivery man and garbage collector, 34, from the northern Parisian suburbs.
Their DNA was recovered at the scene of the crime, and they "partially admitted their involvement" in the robbery, according to Beccuau. The unemployed garbage collector was arrested at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport, as he was about to board a one-way flight to Algeria, according to officials.
The other two charged suspects are a man, 37, and his domestic partner, 38, also from the northern regions of Paris. The woman, 38, was released from custody on Wednesday.
ABC News' Bruno Roeber, Mary Marsh, Laura Coburn, Stephanie Lorenzo, Zoe Chevalier and John Kapetaneas contributed to this story.
