‘Have to go quickly’: Firm behind Louvre heist truck pokes fun
The company that made the furniture hoist used in Sunday’s brazen Louvre robbery has turned the scandal to its advantage, posting tongue-in-cheek ads about the quality of its equipment.
“When things have to go quickly,” the German company wrote on a social media ad on Monday (local time), featuring a now-famous shot of its hoist outside the Louvre.
Thieves used the equipment to break into the world-famous Paris museum on Sunday (local time), and steal jewels worth an estimated €88 million ($A157 million) before escaping on motorbikes.
The four thieves got away with eight items from French imperial times – brooches, necklaces, earrings and a tiara – worth €88 million (A$157 million) in a heist that took just minutes.
They dropped one stolen item, a diamond and emerald-encrusted royal crown that had belonged to Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife.
Boecker, a lifting equipment maker based near Dortmund, said its lifting device, called an Agilo, could transport up to 400 kilograms with an engine that is “as quiet as a whisper”.
Company managing director Alexander Boecke told AFP the machine was sold “a few years ago to a French customer who rents this type of equipment in Paris and the surrounding area”.
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Such equipment is common in Paris, where most apartment buildings don’t have lifts.
Boecker said the alleged jewel thieves had arranged a demonstration of the Agilo last week, and then stole it.
“They removed the customer’s labelling and replaced the licence plates,” Boecker said.
He said he and his wife immediately recognised the hoist when they saw TV coverage of the theft.
“When it became clear that no one had been injured in the robbery, we took it with a touch of humour” and “started thinking about how we could perhaps use this”, he said.
“It was, of course, an opportunity for us to use the most famous and most visited museum in the world to get a little attention for our company,” he said.
“The crime is, of course, absolutely reprehensible, that’s completely clear to us.”
As the Louvre finally reopened on Wednesday (local time), director Laurence des Cars said were not fitted to the window the thieves used and the museum’s wider CCTV network had failed to detect them in time to prevent the heist.
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It came amid growing anger directed at officials over major security lapses.
Des Cars told French senators that she had offered her resignation but it had been refused by Culture Minister Rachida Dati, who has also come under fire as recriminations flew after the robbery.
“Despite our efforts, despite our hard work every day, we were defeated,” Des Cars told a Senate committee.
She said there weren’t enough cameras on the Louvre’s perimeter and “we did not detect the thieves’ arrival early enough”.
The exterior security cameras did not offer full coverage of the museum’s facade, Des Cars said, adding that the window through which the thieves broke in was not monitored by CCTV.
She insisted she had repeatedly warned that the centuries-old building’s security was in a dire state.
“The warnings I had been sounding came horribly true last Sunday,” she said.
She pledged to establish no-parking zones in areas around the Louvre, upgrade the CCTV network and ask the interior ministry to set up a police station inside the museum.
The heist, on a Sunday morning as the Louvre had just opened to visitors, has prompted a broader assessment of security at museums across France.
Paris is home to some of the world’s best-known cultural institutions, including museums such as Orsay, Pompidou and Quai Branly, which help sustain booming tourism.
At least four French museums have been robbed in the past two months, according to media reports.
On Tuesday, prosecutors said they had charged a Chinese-born woman over the theft of six gold nuggets worth about €1.5 million from the Museum of Natural History in Paris last month.
She was arrested in Barcelona while trying to dispose of some melted gold, they said.
-with AAP
