Priceless Jewels Stolen in daring Heist at the Louvre Museum
PARIS – Thieves employed a sophisticated tactic – utilizing a basket lift – to steal a collection of priceless jewels from the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday, authorities confirmed.The brazen robbery, occurring less than 30 minutes after the museum opened, targeted items from the Galerie d’Apollon.
The stolen jewels represent a significant loss for the museum and underscore ongoing concerns about security vulnerabilities within major European cultural institutions. While the exact value of the stolen items remains undisclosed, they are described as being of “extremely high” worth. No arrests have been made as of Monday.
The louvre, one of the world’s largest and most visited museums, houses over 33,000 works of art, including iconic pieces like the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged victory of Samothrace. It draws up to 30,000 visitors daily.
This incident echoes a series of high-profile museum thefts across Europe in recent years. In 2019, thieves stole diamond-studded royal jewels from Dresden’s Green Vault, valued at hundreds of millions of euros. Berlin’s Bode Museum was targeted in 2017 with the theft of a 100-kilogram (220-pound) solid-gold coin, and in 2010, a Picasso and other paintings were stolen from Paris’s Museum of Modern Art.
The Louvre itself has a storied history of art theft, most famously the 1911 disappearance of the mona Lisa, stolen by Vincenzo peruggia, a former museum worker. The painting was recovered two years later in Florence.
Staffing and security have been ongoing issues at the Louvre. A staff walkout in June, prompted by overcrowding and understaffing, led to a temporary museum closure. Unions have warned that increasing tourism strains security and visitor management. President Emmanuel Macron announced a decadelong “Louvre New Renaissance” plan in January – a roughly €700 million investment to modernize infrastructure and ease crowding – but workers report slow implementation of improvements.
It is currently unclear whether staffing levels contributed to Sunday’s theft, and an investigation is underway.