A group of thieves used a basket lift to break into the Louvre and stole jewellery shortly after the Parisian museum opened on Sunday, before escaping on scooters, French officials confirmed.
Key Facts
- French Culture Minister Rachida Dati confirmed the robbery took place after the museum opened and said no people were injured during the break-in.
- French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said three to four thieves were involved in what he called a “major robbery.”
- In an interview with France’s TF1 station, Dati said the jewels taken were “priceless,” and the “professional” operation lasted only about four minutes.
- Dati also said one of the stolen jewels was found outside the museum.
- The thieves targeted the Galerie d’Apollon, a wing of the museum that displays hardstone vessels and jewels, including parts of the French Crown Jewels—but it is currently unclear exactly which jewels were taken.
- Sources told French newspaper La Parisien the stolen jewels included necklaces, earrings, a brooch, and two crowns, including one owned by Empress Eugénie, the wife of Emperor Napoleon III.
- The Louvre will remain closed for the rest of the day for “exceptional reasons,” the museum said in a post on social media.
- Law enforcement sources told the Agence France-Presse the thieves arrived around 9:30-9:40 a.m. local time, about thirty minutes after the museum opened.
- Another source said the thieves arrived on a scooter and used the lift and angle grinders—small handheld chainsaws—to assist with the break-in.
- In a post on social media, Nunez compared the robbery to “attacking our history and our heritage,” and said investigators were mobilizing quickly find the thieves.
Key Background
Sunday’s robbery at the Louvre is only the latest high profile break-in at a Parisian museum. In September, a group of thieves stole samples of unrefined gold from Paris’s National Museum of Natural History. The thieves also used an angle grinder, as well as a blow torch, to break into the gallery, AFP reported. The stolen samples were worth about 600,000 euros, or $700,000, the museum said. Another high profile museum heist took place in November 2024, when broke into the Musée Cognacq-Jay in broad daylight and stole jewels in front of visitors. The stolen items included two bejeweled snuff boxes owned by the British royal family, which were on loan to the museum. The Royal Collection Trust, the organization that manages the royal family’s art collection, received a $4 million insurance payout after the theft, the New York Times reported in July.
Tangent
The Louvre is one of Paris’s most popular tourist attractions, drawing in a total of 8.7 million visitors in total last year, and Sunday’s heist was not the first high profile robbery at the famed museum. In 1911, a thief stole Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa—a theft that turned the relatively small painting into one of the most famous pieces of art in the entire museum. The thief was later identified as Vincenzo Peruggia, a Louvre employee who walked out of the museum with the Renaissance masterpiece under his coat. Peruggia hid the painting in his apartment for two years before he was caught trying to sell it.
This article was originally published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
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