In a museum that dates back to the beginning of the 20th century, with cameras watching your every move as you’re required to follow intense regulations and rules, could someone really pull off a heist? Could that someone get away in less than ten minutes? In broad daylight? 

If you’re unfamiliar with the Louvre, it’s a famous museum in Paris, France. It features works like The Mona Lisa and a huge glass pyramid settled right in the center of the building. With such expensive works like those, and ancient statues from Rome, paintings from the renaissance, or ornaments and fashion from past French monarchs, one would think the security would be impenetrable. 

Well, on October 19th of this year, at around 9:30 in the morning, shortly after the museum opened, four suspects arrived in a truck with a mechanical ladder attached. They cut through the first floor window of the Gallery of Apollo using some power tools, getting in by 9:34. After unarmed guards fled the scene, the intruders reportedly forced open a display case containing items once worn by French royalty and imperial rulers, obtaining jewels in no less than 3 minutes and 57 seconds according to CCTV footage. Police confirm that the thieves were out by 9:38, escaping on scooters through Paris’ narrow streets, concluding a quick and deliberate heist.

Local footage shows the suspects, dressed in hi-vis vests like they’re simply ‘maintenance workers’, heading down a slow mechanical ladder. ABC7 news, from their sources, confirms this infamous video was taken from inside the Louvre by members of the museum security staff as the building alarms sounded and panic ensued among visitors. 

The thieves escaped successfully with several jewels: a set of diamondn and sapphire (consisting of a diadem, necklace, and a single earring belonging to Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense de Beauharnais of France and Holland), a gift from Napoleon to his wife, an emerald necklace and earrings, the “reliquary broach” (a diamond broach owned by the Empress Eugénie), and another broach and diadem belonging to Empress Eugénie, the diadem made of pearls and almost 2,000 diamonds. Additionally, the thieves had stolen the crown of Empress Eugénie, but had seemed to drop it along the way during the heist, allowing it to be recovered. All in all, the Louvre lost over 7,000 diamonds, 32 emeralds, and 32 sapphires, with a total worth of the jewels being estimated at $102 million. 

In the immediate days after the theft, the Louvre closed, but it has sinced re-0pened. French President Emmanuel Macron labeled the crime “an attack on our history”, with further outcry from the French people. The Louvre has been robbed in the past, with robberies of the Mona Lisa (has been returned) in 1911, and a painting titled “Le Chemin de Sevres” (not returned) in 1998. Additionally, there was a string of thefts at other French museums last month, and twice in November 2024. Fortunately, authorities have apprehended and charged seven people, four with preliminary charges, though one remains free. The heist has caused many memes and buzz on the internet, including businesses making jokes about the theft to sell products. Some of its fascination seems to stem from the pleasure of reading about a heist instead of a mass tragedy, “How thrilling, upon hearing the news, to put oneself in the shoes of the thieves, and imagine making off with the diamonds scot-free,” wrote Caity Weaver for the Atlantic. The unfortunate reality is that the thieves made off with jewels that could easily be broken apart and sold separately, and it’s likely that the Louvre will never get the pieces back, at least not in full.