On Sunday, October 19th, four men broke into the most visited museum in the world. At 9:30 a.m., four men used a mechanical lift to reach a balcony near the river Seine in order to access the museum’s Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo). Two men entered the museum by cutting open the windows with power tools. Once inside, they threatened the guards, who then left, and went to work cutting open the glass displays containing several priceless crown jewels. The two men were only inside for four minutes and left at 9:38 a.m., riding away on two scooters.
Museum officials say that one in three rooms in that area has no CCTV cameras, and the camera in the Galerie d’Apollon was pointing away from the window where the thieves broke in. Auditors who were focusing on the 2018-2024 period noted that the security of the Louvre was wanting and needed to be upgraded. The Louvre acknowledged its security shortcomings and, with help from the French government, was going to launch a renovation that would cost over $900 million. Among the items stolen were a tiara and brooch that belonged to Empress Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, Empress Marie Louise’s emerald necklace and earrings, a reliquary broach, and a sapphire diadem that belonged to Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense. All of these pieces are adorned with thousands of diamonds and gemstones.
This is a large reason why there is such a race to find the jewels. The pieces as a whole will be too dangerous to attempt to sell, so the thieves will most likely break down the jewel for the aforementioned diamonds and gemstones. The tiara of Empress Eugénie was recovered at the scene after seemingly falling off one of the thieves’ scooters. Last week two suspects were charged in connection with the heist. One of them, an Algerian national, was apprehended when boarding a flight to Algeria at Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport. His DNA was a match to a sample found on one of the scooters. The other suspect was later revealed to be the minor social media star Abdoulaye N, who worked as a security guard at the Pompidou centre and had a passion for motorbikes. Another man and one woman have been arrested, with the woman proclaiming her innocence. The location of the suspected fourth man in the heist is still unknown. The criminal records of the suspects indicate a history of illegal activity, albeit the majority of which is petty crime. The French police have taken care to protect the privacy of the suspects, citing the presumption of innocence, the belief that people are innocent until proven guilty.
The investigation is still ongoing and French officials are in a race against time to recover these precious jewels before they are lost forever, and invaluable pieces of French history and culture are lost with them.
