The Louvre Museum in Paris, France, reopened to the general public on Wednesday after a jewelry heist prompted a three-day closure.
Through the theft, a band of thieves broke into the French capital’s iconic museum and stole eight gadgets of jewelry containing treasured jewels from the Napoleonic period on October 19. The robbers are nonetheless at giant, and the jewels haven’t been discovered.
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Here’s what we all know to this point about the place the jewelry could possibly be, whether or not it may be traced, and whether or not the robbers shall be discovered.
What was stolen from the Louvre?
At 9:30am (07:30 GMT), a bunch of robbers used a truck-mounted ladder to achieve the gilded Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo’s Gallery) on the second ground of the museum earlier than taking an angle grinder to a window to entry the French crown jewels. The heist happened round half an hour after the museum opened to the general public.
The stolen articles had been:
- A tiara from the jewelry set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense
- A necklace from the identical duo’s sapphire jewelry set
- A single earring from the sapphire jewelry set
- An emerald necklace from a set belonging to Empress Marie-Louise
- A pair of emerald earrings from the Marie-Louise set
- A brooch often known as the “reliquary” brooch
- The tiara of Empress Eugenie
- A big brooch of Empress Eugenie
The robbers additionally stole a ninth merchandise, the crown of Empress Eugenie, spouse of Napoleon III. But it surely was recovered close by, thought to have been dropped by the thieves, in line with the French Ministry of the Inside.
How a lot are the stolen gadgets value?
The haul of jewels is value an estimated 88 million euros ($102m), Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau instructed RTL radio on Tuesday.
“It is very important keep in mind that this injury is an financial injury, however it’s nothing in comparison with the historic injury brought on by this theft,” Beccuau mentioned.
Why is that this heist totally different from earlier robberies on the museum?
That is not the first time the Louvre has been robbed. Nevertheless, earlier robberies have largely concerned the theft of work – for instance, the Mona Lisa, which was stolen in 1911 – fairly than jewels.
“A jewelry theft is a really totally different factor to think about due to the excessive intrinsic worth of the article stolen,” American artwork historian Noah Charney instructed Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
“A portray doesn’t have a excessive intrinsic worth as a result of it’s normally fabricated from panel and pigment, and canvas and nothing extra. Whereas jewelry has a excessive intrinsic worth as a result of for those who break down what was stolen and promote the parts, the worth remains to be vital,” Charney defined.
The place might the jewels be now?
The jewels are almost definitely nonetheless in France, Dutch artwork historian Arthur Model instructed Al Jazeera.
They could possibly be offered on the black market, however this would scale back their worth due to the excessive threat related to being in possession of them.
“They’re very ‘sizzling’ and the worth on the black market shall be means under the common market,” Model mentioned, estimating that the black-market costs can be between 10 and 30 p.c of their worth. This implies the $102m jewels might promote at between $10.2m and $30.6m on the black market.
Charney mentioned the thieves is not going to must go to the black market in any respect if the jewels are recut considerably and now not identifiable. Nevertheless, re-cutting gems additionally reduces their worth. If a thief tries to re-cut an vintage diamond to a contemporary form, they could lose a number of the diamond’s measurement and worth.
Corinne Chartrelle, a former officer with the French Police’s unit for cultural property trafficking, instructed Reuters that the stolen jewels might in the end be offered in main diamond markets reminiscent of Antwerp in Belgium, the place some patrons could not care about their origins.
Alternatively, “they could attempt to promote the jewels in international locations like India, Israel or Dubai,” mentioned Model.
Will the thieves be caught?
“The thieves will get caught for positive. Recovering the jewels is 50 p.c – relies on the time it’ll take to arrest the thieves,” Model mentioned.
Public prosecutors have tasked the BRB (Brigade de Repression du Banditisme – or the Banditry Repression Brigade), a specialised Paris police unit skilled in dealing with high-profile thefts, with investigating the heist.
Former police officer Pascal Szkudlara, who beforehand labored within the BRB, instructed Reuters that the unit is skilled in such circumstances, and dealt with the 2016 Paris theft of media persona Kim Kardashian’s engagement ring, value $4m. Szkudlara mentioned he was “100%” assured that the thieves would finally be caught.
Police are anticipated to evaluation surveillance digicam footage going again weeks in an try and determine suspicious folks in and across the premises.
Nevertheless, time is restricted as a result of if the jewels are recut, they’ll by no means be returned to their authentic type, even when the thieves are caught.
Have there been different robberies in European museums not too long ago?
The Louvre theft comes amid a latest spate of jewelry thefts from different museums in Europe. Latest incidents embrace:
September 2025: Museum of Pure Historical past, France
On September 30, a 24-year-old Chinese language lady was arrested in Barcelona after stealing six gold nuggets from the Museum of Pure Historical past in Paris. The gold nuggets had been value about 1.5 million euros ($1.74m).
The girl was arrested whereas attempting to eliminate melted gold – it’s unclear who could have melted it. The museum’s alarms and safety system had been disabled in a cyberattack, however it is usually unclear whether or not the thieves had been those behind the cyberattack or whether or not the theft was opportunistic.
January 2025: Drents Museum, Netherlands
In late January, thieves stole 4 artefacts together with three gold bracelets and a gold helmet that was estimated to be round 2,500 years previous from the Drents Museum in Assen, northeast Netherlands.
The artefacts had been a part of an exhibit on the Dacians, an historical society that after inhabited the land that’s now Romania.
In late July, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service (PPS) introduced that the investigation into the heist had concluded and three suspects had been recognized. The suspects have been arrested and formally indicted, Dutch media reported. Their newest listening to was on October 16 at a courtroom in Assen.
The PPS didn’t give details about the place the stolen gadgets are situated. In an replace on Could 9, it mentioned it believed that they had not been melted down and that the primary suspects nonetheless had possession of them. “There may be at present no details about whether or not there was an exterior consumer behind the theft,” the PPS mentioned.
Could 2024: Ely Museum, UK
On Could 7, a gold torc and gold bracelet, courting again to the Bronze Age, had been stolen from the Ely Museum, Cambridgeshire, in the UK.
Later that month, impartial charity Crimestoppers provided a 5,000-pound ($6,671) reward for info resulting in the conviction of the thieves. There haven’t been updates on whether or not the thieves have been caught or the stolen gadgets recovered.
November 2022: Celtic and Roman Museum, Germany
Thieves stole 483 historical gold cash from the Celtic and Roman Museum in Manching, Bavaria. An official estimated that the cash had been value $1.7m, the New York Instances reported on the time.
In July this 12 months, three males had been convicted of the theft and sentenced to jail for as much as 11 years. A lot of the stolen cash stay unrecovered, nevertheless. Investigators did discover lumps of gold on one suspect throughout his arrest, which indicated that some or all the cash may need been melted down.
