17 people arrested in Kim Kardashian Paris robbery

Traces of DNA left on a piece of tape used to gag Kim Kardashian led to the arrest of 17 people Monday in connection with her armed robbery in Paris last year, according to reports.

The suspects — 14 men and three women ranging in age from 23 to 73 — were collared in raids launched about 6 a.m. in and around Paris as well as in southern France, officials said.

Multiple firearms and 140,000 euros — about $147,500 — in cash were found during the raids, an official said.

The suspects included the five people who broke into Kardashian’s rented apartment and sealed her mouth with duct tape and bound her wrists Oct. 3 at the chic Hôtel de Pourtalés before swiping more than $10 million worth of jewelry, the French paper Le Monde reported.

One of them was a 60-year-old who tied her up in a bathroom, Europe 1 reported.

Two of the female suspects were the ones who tailed the reality TV star in the days before the brazen heist, TMZ reported.

One of the alleged gangsters is believed to have dropped a diamond pendant worth more than $31,000 in the street during their getaway. A passer-by handed the pendant over to police, who lifted a fingerprint from it and matched it to a known criminal, the Mirror of the UK reported.

Many of the suspects, who include two diamond dealers, have lengthy rap sheets for crimes including armed robbery, officials said. They can be detained for up to 96 hours before police must either charge them or set them free.

Kardashian’s French lawyer, Jean Veil, said the news of arrests is “a great satisfaction.

“These arrests are a nice surprise because we might be able to find the jewels,” Veil told the French magazine L’Express Monday, adding that his client could be interviewed again by investigators.

A French judge could travel to New York to question the 36-year-old star and show her a video of the suspects.

“The hope is that she will be able to recognize the men so as to make positive identifications,” an insider told the Mirror.

The raids were the culmination of a three-month probe that included the discovery of the tape DNA, which belonged to a man with several convictions, the Mirror reported. The other suspects were linked to him.

“One of the DNA samples matched an individual known to police for robbery and criminal offences, who is considered a major thug,” a police source told Agence France-Presse.

Using evidence from the scene, investigators set up a surveillance operation and discovered a criminal network that stretched to Belgium, the source told AFP.

Authorities are investigating the possibility that the bling was moved to Antwerp, known as the diamond capital of Europe, the Mirror reported. Belgian police have joined the probe and checking local ports.

Three masked men wearing police uniforms forced the concierge at gunpoint to open the door to Kardashian’s apartment, where she and her entourage were staying during Fashion Week, and two other robbers stormed inside.

They tied her up and grabbed her diamond ring, a $4.5 million anniversary gift from her hubby, rap mogul Kanye West, that she had flaunted earlier in a Snapchat post. They also swiped a $6.7 million jewelry box and raced off on rented bikes.

The Kardashian family’s French bodyguard, Pascal Duvier, was not at the scene during the heist because he was providing security for Kim’s sister Kourtney at a Paris nightclub.

At the time, a spokeswoman for Kardashian said she was badly shaken but physically unharmed. The robbery raised new concerns about security in Paris after a string of deadly extremist attacks.

Kardashian broke her silence about the crime this weekend, saying she was afraid she was going to be killed by the robbers.

“They’re going to shoot me in the back,” she sobbed to her sisters in a promotional clip for the new season of her TV show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

“There’s no way out. It makes me so upset to think about it,” she added.