They were also movie-level clever, in that they set exact the right power junction on fire, got in at the exact right time, at exact the right place. Then they also set their own car on fire. I don't think it was too different, than what you would see in a movie.
> It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing.
Raise ticket prices until you can afford more staff or don’t need more staff?
I'm willing to guess that securing that window was in no one's backlog, and this was not an issue of either swelling crowds not of stretched staff. It was a security failure.
Why optimize for profit? These institutions have far greater cause of providing the population with culture. In UK for example, most museums are free - at least the best and most important ones.
What are the economics of stealing historical jewelry?
Their size is probably big enough that any collector could distinguish them from any random jewels.
Who is there to sell to? The best bet is to store it away then let your great grandkids sell it to some Asian billionaire in the future when Europe and Europol no longer have any power and influence.
• Tiara from the set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense (img in article)[1]
• Necklace from the sapphire set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense (img in article)[1]
• Earring, from the pair belonging to the sapphire set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense (img in article)[1]
• Emerald necklace from the Empress Marie Louise set (img in article)[1]
• Pair of emerald earrings from the Empress Marie Louise set (img in article)[1]
• Brooch known as the "reliquary brooch" (img)[2]
• Tiara of Empress Eugenie (also referred to as a "diadem") (img)[3]
• Large corsage bow brooch of Empress Eugenie. (img in article)[1]
Stolen and found outside, broken
• Crown of Napoleon III's wife, Empress Eugenie (img)[4]
I see a bunch of comments that it is possible that the thieves were working for a private collector.
Are there really private collectors willing to risk everything for a piece they can never display or even reveal their possession of to anyone else? Have any collectors been caught doing this in the last 50 years?
Sometimes I wonder what it must be like to be the kind of woman who is ultimately destined to wear these stolen items at private parties for ultra mega rich people so powerful that no one can do anything about it.
There's obviously someone involved on the inside, at least at the most basic "paid off" level. This is probably the number one security lapse in any and all organizations. Someone can be corrupted. I still hold that some guard was paid off in the Epstein situation as well. It's the simplest answer and unless it's irrefutably proven false, then that should be the main line of investigation (in this case and many others).
I'm sad for the loss of this portion of the French patrimoine. But being Sunday, I'll cite an ancient Rabbi who had some insight on this kind of problem, and call France to recover another French patrimoine that they tossed aside but which is still recoverable - the treasure of la foi chrétienne.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
-Jesus
Matthew 6:19-21
1) No one expects security in these places to be Hollywood grade lasers, knockout gas, explosive bolts shuttering down inch thick steel plates in an instant. But 7.5 minutes seems a tad long to have gone, per lack of reporting on anything at all about security guards, without being either opposed or confronted, or otherwise encountering obstacles to escape? (I've seen a story also say 4 minutes. The specific timeline might have been revised? Either that or they're deriving their metrics from different start/end points on what constituted beginning and ending the of the theft.
2) Also, this: “One of the jewelry items was found near the Louvre”. Careless that, someone isn't getting a bonus, but I'm not sure if that points either to ineptitude of non-professionals taking a rare opportunity, or professionals who simply had an unlucky fumble but were smart enough not to double back for it.
3) Finally: The market for these is, what, maybe 100 people in the world? That have the desire for this sort of loot, as-is? Because chopping them up and selling piecemeal is not an economically viable risk/reward calculation. Their value is their cohesion, at least as individual pieces and especially as a set. Otherwise, old jewels certainly have a lot of value but they're also not so rare in their individual pieces as to require this high profile of a burglary. So, specific buyers in mind and a commissioned theft I would think? Then again there have been some "dumb thieves" high profile thefts in the past so its not impossible. And it's not so nice a thought to think we're at the point in this world where billionaires are dispatching gangs of thieves in the old Hollywood tradition, instead of keeping their thefts of the more traditional
I said it above but the thieves don't usually sell these types of items. They were probably paid by some organized crime group do it. That crime organization now has a very valuable bargaining chip to have charges dropped by returning the stolen items. Basically its probably going to be used as insurance for organized crime.
25 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 49.1 ms ] threadCompare also this robbery from 2019 in Dresden: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Green_Vault_burglary
Raise ticket prices until you can afford more staff or don’t need more staff?
Their size is probably big enough that any collector could distinguish them from any random jewels.
Who is there to sell to? The best bet is to store it away then let your great grandkids sell it to some Asian billionaire in the future when Europe and Europol no longer have any power and influence.
However, Sky News has an actual list. [1]
[1] https://news.sky.com/story/louvre-museum-in-paris-closed-aft...
Stolen and not retrieved
Stolen and found outside, broken [2] https://thefrenchjewelrypost.com/content/uploads/2016/09/san...[3] https://thefrenchjewelrypost.com/content/uploads/2016/09/san...
[4] https://thefrenchjewelrypost.com/content/uploads/2016/09/san...
EDIT: AP article appears to have been updated (at time of edit 8:25 PM GMT). Now lists items. Original comment was written ~7:00 PM GMT.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UKmonarchs/comments/1dcmb7i/fun_fac...
Are there really private collectors willing to risk everything for a piece they can never display or even reveal their possession of to anyone else? Have any collectors been caught doing this in the last 50 years?
Seems to strain credulity to me.
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. -Jesus Matthew 6:19-21
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/world/europe/louvre-heist...
1) No one expects security in these places to be Hollywood grade lasers, knockout gas, explosive bolts shuttering down inch thick steel plates in an instant. But 7.5 minutes seems a tad long to have gone, per lack of reporting on anything at all about security guards, without being either opposed or confronted, or otherwise encountering obstacles to escape? (I've seen a story also say 4 minutes. The specific timeline might have been revised? Either that or they're deriving their metrics from different start/end points on what constituted beginning and ending the of the theft.
2) Also, this: “One of the jewelry items was found near the Louvre”. Careless that, someone isn't getting a bonus, but I'm not sure if that points either to ineptitude of non-professionals taking a rare opportunity, or professionals who simply had an unlucky fumble but were smart enough not to double back for it.
3) Finally: The market for these is, what, maybe 100 people in the world? That have the desire for this sort of loot, as-is? Because chopping them up and selling piecemeal is not an economically viable risk/reward calculation. Their value is their cohesion, at least as individual pieces and especially as a set. Otherwise, old jewels certainly have a lot of value but they're also not so rare in their individual pieces as to require this high profile of a burglary. So, specific buyers in mind and a commissioned theft I would think? Then again there have been some "dumb thieves" high profile thefts in the past so its not impossible. And it's not so nice a thought to think we're at the point in this world where billionaires are dispatching gangs of thieves in the old Hollywood tradition, instead of keeping their thefts of the more traditional