PARIS — A brazen seven-minute operation in broad daylight that saw a team of thieves get away with “priceless” jewels from the Louvre Museum, the world’s most-visited museum, has officials wondering what additional security measures they should implement to ensure a similar heist doesn’t happen again.
The robbery appeared to be a professional heist, according to a CNN report, with the thieves using a truck-mounted ladder to gain access to the Apollo Gallery, dubbed “one of the most ornate rooms in the Louvre,” and getting away with artifacts from the French Crown Jewels, dating from the Napoleonic era.
Two high-security display cases were targeted and eight of the nine items taken remain unaccounted for, the report says, including a tiara and necklace worn by Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, the French culture ministry said in a statement.
The thieves dropped or left behind one item – the crown of Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, the report says. The “ornate gold piece,” which features 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds, was damaged in the heist, prosecutors said in the CNN report.
What Happened in the Louvre Museum Jewelry Heist?
The four apparently unarmed thieves forced open a window using an angle grinder and stole jewelry that has “sentimental value and is priceless,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said in a statement reported by CNN. They allegedly threatened the guards with the angle grinders, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
A detailed list of the stolen items released by the culture ministry revealed a single earring from the sapphire parure of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, an emerald necklace and pair of emerald earrings from the parure of Empress Marie-Louise, the “reliquary brooch,” and the tiara and large corsage bow brooch of Empress Eugénie were stolen in the heist, according to the CNN report.
A Louvre security officer scuttled an attempt to set fire to the truck used to carry out the raid, according to the culture ministry’s statement. The suspects allegedly fled the scene on motorcycles, said Nuñez in his statement.
The thieves are facing charges of “aggravated theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy to commit a felony,” according to the CNN report.
“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, the report says. “I am confident that we will very quickly find the perpetrators and, above all, recover the stolen goods.”
Police found two angle grinders, a blowtorch, gasoline, gloves, a walkie-talkie, a blanket and a crown at the scene of the robbery, according to Le Parisien. A yellow vest used by the perpetrators “to disguise themselves as workmen was found a bit further away,” the newspaper said and CNN reported.
In video from the scene, French police were apparently examining an abandoned furniture elevator next to a corner of the Louvre, with its ladder leading up to a broken window off a balcony, according to the CNN report.
The incident took place at 9:30 a.m. local time and that members of the public had been evacuated without incident, the report said. A tour guide told CNN he evacuated his group upon orders from a security guard after hearing “stomping” on a window in the Apollo Room.
The Louvre welcomed about 8.7 million visitors last year, according to the CNN report. The last high-profile theft in the facility came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa was taken off the walls. The iconic painting now sits behind bulletproof glass and visitors are kept away from it by a velvet rope.
