France’s prosecutor’s office has announced that a woman of Chinese origin has been charged with stealing six gold nuggets worth approximately €1.5 million from the Paris Museum of Natural History last month, BBC News reports.

According to officials, the woman was arrested in Barcelona while allegedly attempting to melt down and destroy the gold and is currently in preliminary detention.

The museum, known for its collection of taxidermy animals and fossils, also has a mineral gallery from which the gold was taken. Police reportedly found an angle grinder and a blowtorch at the scene. The museum’s alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled due to a cyberattack, and the thieves apparently knew about it, French media reported at the time.

“The thieves, who were clearly highly skilled and well-informed, exploited a security vulnerability that had not been detected during the last inspection in 2024,” a museum representative told Le Figaro.

The theft was discovered by cleaning staff who arrived at the museum before dawn. The museum is part of Sorbonne University and is located in central Paris near the Botanical Gardens. The suspect was arrested by Spanish police on September 30 under a European arrest warrant and handed over to French authorities the same day, officials said.

At the time of her arrest, she was carrying around one kilogram of melted gold. The investigation is ongoing, and authorities believe she was planning to travel to China. One of the largest stolen nuggets, originating from Australia, weighs 5 kilograms — worth about €585,000 at current gold prices.