A spectacular robbery took place Sunday morning shortly after the opening of the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, where a four-member gang made off with eight 19th-century jewels of “low value” before fleeing.
Around 9:30 a.m., the thieves entered the museum’s Apollo Gallery, which houses the French Crown Jewels, and smashed the hall’s windows with angle grinders after climbing onto a platform from the outside. The jewels were protected by two high-security display cases.
The loot is still being estimated, but the stolen jewels are of “low value,” said Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, speaking to France Inter/Franceinfo/Le Monde.
Among the eight stolen objects are the sapphire necklace of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, composed of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, and the tiara of Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III, containing nearly 2,000 diamonds.
A ninth object, the crown of Empress Eugénie, was abandoned by the criminals during their escape and its condition “is being examined,” the Ministry of Culture said in a statement, referring to a “particularly swift and brutal” theft.
According to Núñez, the operation, which lasted just “seven minutes,” was carried out by “experienced” thieves who could be “foreigners.”
The minister said he was “hopeful” that the criminals, who fled on a motorcycle, would be arrested “very quickly.”
On BFMTV, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau spoke of a “commando” of four people who acted “with their faces hidden” and “threatened the guards present at the scene (…) with angle grinders” used to break the windows.
The judge also mentioned the possible existence of “sponsors” and “small hands” within this criminal group.
A source close to the case had confirmed this morning that one of their scooters had been found, information that, however, “has not been confirmed,” according to Beccuau.
An investigation has been opened, specifically into organized theft, and has been entrusted to the Brigade for the Suppression of Banditry (BRB).
- “Hollywood Script” –
Visitors to the museum, which opened at 9:00 a.m., were quickly evacuated “without incident,” the Louvre told AFP.
“It seems like… the script for a Hollywood movie,” Talia Ocampo, an American tourist, told AFP when interviewed near the museum, which was closed for the entire day.
“You’d think the Louvre, of all places, would have the best security in the world, right?” asked Janie, another American tourist, after having to leave the museum, which will welcome nearly 9 million visitors in 2024.
It was Culture Minister Rachida Dati who first made the theft public, calling it a “mugging” on February 10 at this 73,000 square meter museum, which houses around 35,000 works of art, including the famous Mona Lisa, and whose security is a huge logistical challenge.
“We know very well that there is a great vulnerability in French museums,” the Interior Minister said when asked about possible flaws in the surveillance system.
- Outrage against the far right –
The minister’s comments echo several recent museum thefts in France.
In mid-September, native gold pieces valued at €600,000 were stolen during a robbery at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
In September, a museum in Limoges was robbed, with damage estimated at €6.5 million.
“Today, organized crime is targeting art objects, and museums have become targets,” Rachida Dati told TF1, stating that it was necessary to “adapt these museums to new forms of crime.”
The far-right National Rally (RN) party was outraged by the theft, calling it a “humiliation” and revealing that French museums “are not secure enough to deal with the threats they face.”
David Belliard, deputy mayor of Paris for the Green Party, said that Louvre officials had “recently raised the alarm about security breaches” but that they had gone unheeded.
The last recorded theft at the Louvre took place in 1998, when a painting by French painter Camille Corot was stolen. It has never been recovered.
Publicado el 19 de octubre a las 19:49, AFP
