Seven minutes were enough so that four hooded men can attack the most visited museum on the planet, with nearly nine million visitors in 2024, and take allegedly seven pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress Josephine of the Louvre: a necklace, a brooch and a tiara, among them.
The French Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, explained to local media that there were “three or four” thieves who entered the museum from outside, using a “articulated arm” that was on a truck to access the “Apollo room.” They were there for about “seven minutes” and They looted “two display cases”accurate.
The ‘modus operandi’ of the criminals seemed to be especially well prepared. According to the newspaper ‘Le Figaro’, four people —two on board a truck equipped with a forklift and two more on a powerful scooter— they arrived in front of the museum at 9:30, at the François Mitterrand quay.
The criminals posed as workers carrying out the museum’s remodeling tasks and entered through a window of the building located on the side of the Seine River, using an angle grinder and a lift.
“Audacious robbery”
They used this forklifts to access the Apolo gallery, on the first floor, forcing the window with a radial. They then broke two display cases, the one with the “jewels of Napoleon” and the one with the “jewels of the French sovereigns”, using that same radio, before stealing several pieces of jewelry: seven in total, according to a police source.
The four individuals went down the forklift again and fled aboard the two scooters. His blow lasted a total of seven minutes. The police found two radios, a blowtorch, gasoline, gloves, a walkie-talkie, a blanket and a broken piece of jewelry on the street, very close to the museum. It would be the crown of Empress Eugenia de Montijo, set with 1,354 diamonds, 1,136 roses and 56 emeralds.
The Minister of the Interior, and former prefect of Paris until a few days ago, Laurent Nunezhas pointed out that “The robbery was very audacious and well planned” with a duration of only “7 minutes”, and that despite the fact that the law enforcement agencies arrived “immediately” and has stressed that the level of The success of these operations usually exceeds 50%.
Subscribe to continue reading
