It sounds like the plot of a heist movie: brazen thieves break into the Louvre in broad daylight and speed off with irreplaceable jewels once belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte and Empress Josephine.
Erin Thompson, professor of art crime at the City University of New York, said while it makes for an attention-grabbing headline, these sorts of heists are “pretty common.”
“If you go in the middle of the day, there’s lots of confused tourists to act as cover while you’re running away,” Thompson explained.
Thompson noted that jewelry is a prime target, not for its historical value, but for its melt value.
“Smarter thieves take things like jewelry because you can melt down the metal and recut the stones, and then those pieces just disappear,” she said.
Former FBI art crime investigator Robert Wittman agrees. He explained that the real fear is the stolen jewels will be melted down, destroying their cultural significance.
“You lose the cultural artifact,” Wittman said. “Gold just went over €4,100 ($4,780 U.S. dollars) an ounce last week. So gold is a very, very hot commodity right now.”
The thieves used a truck with a ladder, similar to those seen on fire engines, to reach a balcony and break in through a window. They then used heavy equipment to cut into display cases and made their getaway on mopeds, a common tactic in Europe’s narrow streets.
Thompson suggested the Louvre’s historic architecture may have also made it vulnerable. “You can’t exactly change it all up to make things more secure,” she said.
Wittman adds that French authorities are likely moving fast. He has worked with France’s OCBC Art Crime Team and the BRB, a Parisian unit that targets organized crimes like this one.
“I think you’re going to have both of these groups involved in this, because this is important stuff to the nation of France,” Wittman said.
While paintings are often recovered—about 90% of the time because they’re hard to sell—jewelry is another story.
Thompson said that while the hired hands who physically stole the jewels are often captured eventually, many times the masterminds who planned the operation go free.
“The criminal masterminds who plotted the events often go scot-free,” she said.
https://wtop.com/crime/2025/10/why-the-jewels-stolen-from-the-louvre-may-be-gone-forever/
