Thieves strike France’s Louvre in daring jewel heist
Thieves have used a vehicle-mounted ladder and power tools to break into the Louvre in broad daylight and loot jewels of “inestimable value” before fleeing on scooters.
Source: X
The meticulously planned brazen heist happened just after opening time on Sunday (local time) in Paris and was over in only a handful of minutes.
One stolen item was reportedly dropped as the group of three or four balaclava-clad robbers escaped the same way they came in. A manhunt remains under way.
The piece found outside the museum was reportedly the crown of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. It was made in the 1850s and contains 2480 diamonds and 56 emeralds.
The crown of Napoleon’s wife, Empress Eugenie. Photo: Louvre
Media outlet BFM reported the loot was believed to include jewels belonging to Napoleon III and other royal treasures.
The BBC reports the thieves’ vehicle-mounted ladder was parked outside a balcony leading to the Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo), which houses French royalty’s jewels and riches.
The Interior Ministry said intruders forced open a window about 9.30am on Sunday, stole jewels from vitrines and fled on two-wheelers.
Visitors at the Louvre, the world’s most popular museum, were told to leave immediately after the robbery. It was then sealed off and closed.
New arrivals were turned away and nearby streets were closed, according to the Interior Ministry.
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The Louvre said on X it would remain closed for the day for “exceptional reasons”.
The Louvre, home to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, had nine million visitors in 2024. It can draw up to 30,000 visitors a day.
Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on BFM TV said the robbery took between six to seven minutes.
It was carried out by four people who were unarmed, but who threatened the guards with angle grinders, she said.
They targeted nine objects, getting away with eight of them. Beccau said the ninth item – the crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie – was lost as the gang fled.
“It’s worth several tens of millions of euros — just this crown. And it’s not, in my opinion, the most important item,” Drouot auction house president Alexandre Giquello told Reuters.
Beccuau said it was a mystery why the thieves did not steal the Regent diamond, which is housed in the Galerie d’Apollon and is estimated to be worth more than $US60 million ($92 million) by Sotheby’s.
“I don’t have an explanation,” she said.
“It’ll only be when they’re in custody and face investigators that we’ll know what type of order they had and why they didn’t target that window.”
Beccuau said one of the thieves wore a yellow reflective vest, which investigators have since recovered. She said the robbers tried and failed to set fire to the crane that was mounted on the back of a small truck as they fled.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the probe was being run by a specialised police unit that has experience in cracking high-profile robberies.
Investigators were keeping all leads open, Beccuau said.
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But she said it was likely the robbery was either commissioned by a collector, in which case there was a chance of recovering the pieces in a good state, or done by thieves interested only in the valuable jewels and precious metals. She said foreign interference was not among the main hypotheses.
An extendable ladder was used to access one of the upper floors. Photo: AAP
Earlier this year, officials at the Louvre requested urgent help from the French government to restore and renovate its ageing exhibition halls and better protect its countless works of art.
The ministry said forensic work was under way and a precise inventory of the stolen objects was being compiled. It said the stolen items had “inestimable” historical and patrimonial value.
Nunez called it a “major robbery”, saying the intruders “entered from the outside using a basket lift”, that the operation lasted seven minutes, and that window panes were cut with a disc cutter.
He said it was “manifestly a team that had done scouting”.
The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies.
The most famous was in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame. It was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat.
It was recovered two years later in Florence — an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait the world’s best-known artwork.
In 1983, two Renaissance-era pieces of armour were stolen and not recovered for almost four decades later.
The museum’s collection also bears the legacy of Napoleonic-era looting that continues to spark restitution debates.
It is home to more than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and painting — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters.
Its star attractions include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
The Galerie d’Apollon, scene of Sunday’s theft, displays a selection of the French crown jewels.
-with AAP
