PARIS — A brazen, seven-minute daytime raid on a busy morning at Paris’s Louvre Museum ended with thieves escaping through traffic with “priceless” Napoleonic-era jewelry. The theft has prompted museum authorities and officials to debate what further security steps might shield the world’s most-visited museum from a repeat performance.
Citing a CNN report, investigators said the operation had the precision of a professional crew. A truck with a mounted ladder rolled up to the Apollo Gallery, regarded as “one of the most ornate rooms in the Louvre,” and allowed the thieves to breach a second-floor window with an angle grinder.
Two high-security display cases in that gallery were shattered, and eight of nine targeted items vanished, announced France’s culture ministry. These artifacts, part of the French Crown Jewels dating from the Napoleonic era, included pieces once owned by Queen Marie-Amélie and her daughter, Queen Hortense.
Many of these treasures were commissioned under Napoleon I in the early 1800s. His successors added select items over the following decades. After the fall of the monarchy, France transferred the Crown Jewels to the Louvre for safekeeping and public display.
One item, the crown of Empress Eugénie, was left behind, badly damaged. That ornate gold piece, studded with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, suffered cracks when the suspects fled, prosecutors said in the CNN report.
The quartet, apparently unarmed, cut through the window frame with angle grinders and threatened guards, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau told CNN. In an official statement, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez described the jewelry as having “sentimental value and is priceless.”
A detailed inventory from the culture ministry listed the missing articles: one earring from the sapphire parure of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense; an emerald necklace and matching earrings from the parure of Empress Marie-Louise; the “reliquary brooch”; plus Empress Eugénie’s tiara and large corsage bow brooch.
When the robbery vehicle tried to catch fire, a museum security officer rushed to douse the flames and prevent further damage, the culture ministry added. The vehicle remains under forensic examination. During their escape, the suspects mounted motorcycles and vanished into Paris traffic, according to Nuñez.
Officials have charged the four with “aggravated theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy to commit a felony,” a CNN report states. Investigators believe the suspects had conducted detailed surveillance of the gallery ahead of the raid.
“Clearly, a team had been scouting the location. It was obviously a very experienced team that acted very, very quickly,” Nuñez said on France Inter Radio. He added that authorities would work swiftly to identify and capture those responsible and recover the stolen artifacts.
At the scene, police recovered tools and evidence, Le Parisien reported. Among the items found were two angle grinders, a blowtorch, gasoline cans, gloves, a walkie-talkie, a blanket and the abandoned crown. A yellow vest used by the perpetrators “to disguise themselves as workmen was found a bit further away,” the paper said.
Video footage from outside the museum shows officers inspecting a furniture elevator adjacent to the building. Its ladder extended up to a shattered sash off a balcony, marking the thieves’ point of entry into the Apollo Gallery, CNN reported.
The incident occurred at about 9:30 a.m. local time. Visitors in the Apollo Gallery were evacuated peacefully after a tour guide heard “stomping” at the window. No casualties or injuries were reported, officials said.
The Louvre drew nearly 8.7 million visitors last year, holding the title as the planet’s top art destination. Its most famous masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, was previously stolen in 1911 and now sits behind bulletproof glass and a velvet barrier to deter would-be thieves.
