Paris museum heist: Thieves steal €600,000 gold samples; alarm systems under suspicion

Thieves entered into Paris' Natural History Museum on Tuesday and stole gold samples valued at 600,000 euros ($700,000).

According to the museum, and the invaders allegedly used a blow torch and an angle grinder to break into the renowned tourist and Parisian riverside complex of the museum which is located in the 5th district of the French capital.

According to the museum's press office informed AFP that "the theft concerns several specimens of native gold from the national collections held by the museum."

"While the stolen specimens are valued at around 600,000 euros based on the price of raw gold, they nevertheless carry an immeasurable heritage value," the museum said in a statement.

A metal alloy that contains gold and silver in their unprocessed, natural state is known as "native gold."

It was unclear whether the museum's monitoring and alarm systems were operational at the time of the heist, but an anonymous police source informed the Parisien daily that they had been rendered inoperable by a cyberattack in July.

"We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go, and with professional equipment," Emmanuel Skoulios, the director of the museum, stated to the BFM television program.

"It is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items," he stated.

The museum was examining its collection for additional losses while closing its mineralogy gallery on Tuesday.

According to the museum's website, one of its jewels is a 9 by 8.5 centimeter (3.3-3.5 inch) native gold and quartz sample that was given to it by a wealthy French collector. The sample came from the Donatia mine in California.

Earlier this month, there was a break-in at the Adrien Dubouche National Museum in Limoges, central France. An estimated 6.5 million euros was lost when thieves took two dishes and a vase made of Chinese porcelain that is considered a national treasure.