A gang of highly organised thieves has stolen an Oscar awarded to Charlie Chaplin at the first Academy Awards ceremony in 1929, police in Paris have said.

In addition to the statuette, which is covered in 24 carat gold and valued at €1 million, the robbers also took a number of expensive pens used by the most famous film star of silent era. Each of the pens is believed to be worth €80,000 apiece, Le Parisien reports.

The theft, which took place in early January, had been kept under wraps as police scrambled to apprehend the robbers. The case is being handled under “the utmost discretion,” and members of the Broc Division, which specialises in artworks, are involved in the investigation.

The Academy Award, an honorary prize awarded for the 1929 film The Circus, was the first of three Oscars the filmmaker would receive. The actor, whose work in The Tramp and The Great Dictator still influences modern cinema, was also awarded another honorary Oscar in 1972, and received a record-breaking 12-minute standing ovation from the crowd.

The British actor, whose grandmother was Irish, spent a number of years holidaying in the County Cork town of Waterville. He died on Christmas Day, 1977, at the age of 88.