Two men have been arrested following a robbery at the Louvre museum in Paris which saw thieves escape with priceless jewellery, including part of the French crown jewels.

Confirming arrests had been made on Saturday night, French public prosecutor Laure Beccuau appeared furious with the way the arrests were announced.

She said: “I deeply deplore the hasty disclosure of this information by informed individuals, without consideration for the investigation.

“This revelation can only harm the investigative efforts of the hundred or so investigators involved in the search for both the stolen jewellery and all the perpetrators.”

While Ms Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests, she said one man had been arrested as he was preparing to leave the country from Charles de Gaulle Airport.

A second man was arrested on the same evening, also in the Paris region, according to French media.

Ms Beccuau did not say whether jewels had been recovered.

Both men are originally from Seine-Saint-Denis, a northern suburb of Paris, according to French daily paper Le Parisien.

The operation is understood to have been swiftly launched after investigators, who had been monitoring the two individuals for days, realised that one of them was about to flee abroad. French media reported he was set to board a flight to Algeria.

Ms Beccuau said it was too early to provide any further details, but would say more at the end of the period of police custody.

Commenting on the arrests on social media, France’s interior minister Laurent Nunez praised the investigators for “working tirelessly” and said “the investigations must continue while respecting the confidentiality of the inquiry”.

The suspects are now in pre-trial detention as part of investigations into the “organised theft” and “criminal conspiracy to commit a crime”. They can be held for up to 96 hours.

The men are suspected of being part of the group of criminals who used a cherry picker to reach a window in the Apollo Gallery of the Louvre, smashing display cases and making off with jewels worth £76m. They fled on motorbikes.

One of the world’s most famous museums, attracting up to 30,000 visitors a day, the Louvre was forced to close last Sunday morning after thieves accessed a gallery containing the French crown jewels at around 9.30am local time (8.30am UK time).

It took them less than eight minutes to steal eight “priceless” objects, including sapphire and emerald necklaces, and a diamond brooch containing 2,438 diamonds.

A ninth item – the emerald crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie – was stolen but recovered, damaged at the scene.

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The Louvre reopened to visitors earlier this week.

Sky News has contacted French police for comment.

US President Donald Trump has overseen the signing of an expanded ceasefire deal between Thailand and Cambodia, which he helped negotiate this summer to resolve their border dispute.

The ceremony took place shortly after Mr Trump arrived in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN summit on Sunday, in what he described as a “momentous day”.

“There was a lot of killing. And then we got it stopped, very quickly,” he said before Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul signed the agreement.

“We did something that a lot of people said couldn’t be done,” said Mr Trump. Mr Manet called it a “historic day” and Mr Charnvirakul said the agreement creates “the building blocks for a lasting peace”.

The ceasefire agreement calls for Thailand to release 18 Cambodian soldiers in captivity and for both countries to start withdrawing heavy weapons from the border.

The US president said he had signed economic deals with both nations and was scheduled to finalise a trade agreement with Malaysia later in the day.

During the ASEAN Summit, regional leaders are expected to work on stabilising ties with the US.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and a troupe of ceremonial dancers greeted Mr Trump at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. He paused on the red carpet to dance with the performers before getting into his limousine.

Kuala Lumpur is the first stop of Mr Trump’s week-long trip to the region, which also includes visits to Japan and South Korea.

This includes a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea.

Asked by a reporter whether rare earths were discussed in the US-China talks that began on Saturday, US trade negotiator Jamieson Greer said a wide range of topics were covered, including extending the trade truce.

“I believe we are reaching a point where the leaders will have a very productive meeting,” Mr Greer said.

Mr Trump is also expected to discuss tariffs with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who is among the leaders attending the APEC summit.

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East Timor, Asia’s youngest nation, officially became ASEAN’s 11th member on Sunday, fulfilling a vision its current president had nearly 50 years ago, when the country was still a Portuguese colony.

Also known as Timor-Leste, the nation of 1.4 million is among Asia’s poorest and hopes joining the bloc will strengthen its fledgling economy. At roughly $2bn, it represents only a small fraction of ASEAN’s combined $3.8trn GDP.

The world’s largest aircraft carrier is steaming towards the Caribbean supported by the rest of its “carrier group” to add even more muscle to the US forces already threateningly close to Venezuela.

The question is simple – is this really all about President Trump‘s war on drugs in South America?

I doubt it. A sledgehammer to crack a nut isn’t even in it.

There are a few reasons to doubt the American government’s stated aim of wiping out these so-called “narco terrorist” gangs threatening the US from Venezuela, even after one takes out of the equation the sort of equipment the military is deploying – which isn’t what they would need for effective drug smuggling interdiction.

While the president acknowledges that the synthetic opioid fentanyl is a huge killer in the US (which it is) and is supplied by drug gangs (which it is), to blame Venezuela for fentanyl production is simply incorrect.

Mexican cartels produce fentanyl with precursors largely supplied from China, and it is from Mexico – America’s neighbour – that the fentanyl is smuggled directly into the United States across its southern border.

Venezuela isn’t involved in this fentanyl business in any meaningful way, and I know this because I have reported from the Sinaloa cartel’s fentanyl production labs in Mexico.

The Mexican cartels are very proud of their business, and from my experience covering this story over the years, when the drugs cartels are proud of something, and it makes them a lot of money – which fentanyl does – they don’t share the market with anyone, and certainly not with Venezuela.

President Trump is right that Venezuela is now a large supplier of other illegal drugs, especially cocaine, but they come from countries like Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, which are the largest producers of the coca leaf in the world (the coca leaf is what cocaine is made from).

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Venezuela, which borders Colombia, is largely a transit country to the Caribbean in the same way that Ecuador, which also borders Colombia, is a transit country to the Pacific.

Neither Venezuela nor Ecuador are significant drug producers.

The drugs enter Venezuela overland, primarily from Colombia, and then mainly leave the country from ports on the northern coast of the country – and these are the departure points of the boats the US government has recently targeted and destroyed, along with the crews on board.

President Trump claims these boats from Venezuela are heading to the United States, but in reality they are mainly heading to the nearby islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and from there they largely go to West Africa and Europe – mostly Spain and Portugal.

Drugs heading to America either pass through Mexico over the border into the US or are transported via the Pacific Ocean route through countries like Ecuador. In this instance, Venezuela isn’t involved.

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It’s widely accepted the two most exported drugs from South America are cocaine and marijuana – and the volume of production is staggering.

But the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US says that synthetic opioids like fentanyl are responsible for most overdose deaths there – and fentanyl is not produced in South America, whatever the president says.

So one can only conclude he is either mistaken and misinformed, or he has another motive. I suspect it is the latter, and that regime change in Venezuela is top of the list.