On Sunday morning, a gang of thieves pulled off a daring seven-minute heist at the Louvre in Paris – snatching several “priceless” items of jewellery from the famous museum.
The city has been left “shocked” by the theft from its beloved museum, which welcomes tens of thousands of tourists a day.
As French police launched a manhunt for the thieves, the heist was compared to a popular Netflix drama called Lupin. It tells the story of a modern-day criminal inspired by an infamous French thief, Arsene Lupin, who stole from the rich.
What happened at the Louvre?
At 9.30am on Sunday 19 October, a group of masked thieves broke into the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon in Paris. This opulent hall – whose ceiling was painted by Charles Le Brun for King Louis XIV – houses some of France’s most valuable and historically important artefacts, including what is left of the French crown jewels.
In just seven minutes, the thieves are reported to have taken around nine “priceless” pieces from a collection containing items once owned by Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, and Empress Marie-Louise, the second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Galerie d’Apollon sits on the southeastern side of the Louvre. The group of thieves are understood to have escaped from the museum on scooters.
Following the incident, the museum was closed and tourists were evacuated, while police surrounded the building.
How did they steal the jewels?
The thieves are thought to have gained entry to the first-floor window using a mechanical lift, similar to a cherry picker, attached to a vehicle. Images have emerged of the vehicle still in place by the window.
According to France’s interior minister Laurent Nunez, the thieves gained access by breaking a window with an angle grinder, and were able to open two display cases.
Mr Nunez told a French radio station that the thieves were “clearly a team that had been scouting” the building.
The thieves left one item behind in their haste, which was found close to the Louvre. It is understood by French media to be the crown of Empress Eugenie. However, officials have yet to confirm that this is the item in question.
According to Le Parisien, police found two angle grinders at the scene, a blowtorch, gasoline, gloves, a walkie-talkie, a blanket, a crown, and a yellow vest of a type allegedly used by the criminals to pass themselves off as workers.
In a statement, the mayor of Paris Centre, Ariel Weil, likened the incident to the Netflix show Lupin, which depicts the antics of a fictional thief in Paris.
He said: “It’s a shock... It’s clear we’re [dealing with] Arsene Lupin. It’s been a movie script up until now. It’s hard to imagine that it’s seemingly so easy to burglarise the Louvre.”
How have police reacted?
Police have launched an investigation of the incident, and a hunt for the perpetrators.
Immediately after the theft, police sealed off access to the museum, including one major road along the riverbank in front of it, according to the BBC.
Pictures of the scene showed the large extendable ladder that the thieves allegedly used to scale the building.
Mr Nunez said the heist was an attack on France’s heritage and history, warning that investigators have been fully mobilised and that everything is being done to arrest the culprits.
When was the last robbery at the Louvre?
The mayor has admitted that the incident “will inevitably raise security issues”, although thefts from the museum are rare.
The most infamous theft from the Louvre, prior to this incident, was in 1911, when a museum employee stole Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. He was eventually caught, and the painting was returned to the museum two years later.
More recently, in 1998, a 19th-century painting by artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was stolen. According to reports at the time, the painting was cut out of its frame unbeknown to security guards and staff. It has not yet been recovered.
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