The former director of the Louvre suspected of trafficking in antiquities.
The former boss of the Paris museum, Jean-Luc Martinez, was indicted on Wednesday for acts of money laundering in an organized gang and complicity in fraud in an organized gang.
The man was released but remains under judicial control, according to Le Monde.
Two of his collaborators, the head of the Egyptian antiquities department, Vincent Rondot and the Egyptologist Olivier Perdu had been placed in police custody on Monday by the police officers of the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC), indicates The chained Duck.
The origin of a questioned stele
The three men are suspected of having taken part in the trafficking of works, among which is a stele of Tutankhamun.
The case dates back to 2016. That year, the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, a branch of the Parisian museum, acquired several Egyptian antiquities, for tens of millions of euros, according to the weekly.
Among them, a pink granite stele of 1m70, engraved in the name of King Tutankhamun.
Its provenance, like that of other antiquities, is now questionable.
Investigators suspect a production of false documents to "launder" hundreds of archaeological objects looted in different countries of the Near and Middle East.
> More information to follow.