You know that mugshot allegedly tied to one of the thieves who orchestrated the Louvre heist that has been floating around on all our timelines? Well, the person in that photo wants you to know that he actually had nothing to do with that heist.
By now, there’s nothing that hasn’t already been said about the heist in Paris. The seven-minute heist that bore spoils of $100 million has had people all over the world discussing it. George Clooney joked that it looked like something Danny Ocean’s crew could pull off. The strange billionaire founder of Telegram said he’d be willing to buy the jewels off the black market. Even memes online hypothesized what the four main characters from Sex and The City would say. But Stefan Dolbashian — the one in that mugshot — had the most important contribution about the entire debacle: he says he had nothing to do with it.
Dolbashian now works as a dance professor and a freelance choreographer, but the photo is from all the way back in 2010 when he was arrested in Florida on felony charges. All that is behind him now, and he was actually able to find the funny in this while making light of the entire situation on Instagram. Today reached out to him to ask about the renewed interest in his mugshot. He responded, “At first I just laughed it off not thinking much of it but that same day and several days after it seemed like almost everyone I’ve ever met in life reached out to me asking if the picture was me.”
The Luigi Mangione case already set the tone for people making jokes about mugshots. However, the concept of being overly analytical of mugshots goes even further back than that. There has always been an interest in who did what crime and why they’d go to such lengths — and the petty truth is that if the story is intriguing enough, people online want it to be turned into entertainment and made into a movie, or at least a Netflix mini-series. So in the case of the latter, people want the mugshot so they can start their own fancasting on social media.
This situation was exacerbated because there was a slight amusement in how fast they did the heist and the fact that they managed to carry it out with no violence. It also doesn’t help that there is currently a movement questioning whether these famous museums have artifacts that should actually be housed in other less developed nations — artifacts that were acquired through colonization and ancient conquests.
Regardless, Dolbashian’s mugshot is now out of the genie bottle, and he can expect to see his face in all those listicles with “hottest mugshots of all time.” He’s just lucky that unlike most on that list, he’s already done his time, moved on with his life, and can just peruse the strangely light-hearted lists like the rest of us. As Dolbashian explained, “It’s because of this that I felt like I needed to try to get in front of the narrative of my story a little bit, and I also just figured if this many people are going to talk about me I thought I’d be part of the conversation.”
As for the actual people who carried out the heist, depending on who you’re asking — perhaps their day in court will not be as welcome by everyone as you might expect.
