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In a minutes-long heist inside the world’s most-visited museum, thieves in balaclavas rode a crane up the Louvre’s facade, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels, officials said.
The daylight heist happened about 30 minutes after opening on Sunday, Paris time, with visitors already inside. It is among the highest-profile museum thefts in living memory and follows internal complaints that crowding and thin staffing are straining security.
The thieves smashed two display cases and fled on motorbikes, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said. No one was hurt. Alarms brought Louvre agents to the room, forcing the intruders to bolt, but the theft was already done. “It’s a major robbery,” Nunez said.
The theft unfolded just 250 metres from Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, in what Culture Minister Rachida Dati described as a professional “four-minute operation”.
A French Forensics Officer examines the cut window and balcony of a gallery at the Louvre Museum which was the scene of a robbery at the world-famous museum earlier in the day.Credit: Getty Images
“We saw some footage: they don’t target people, they enter calmly in four minutes, smash display cases, take their loot, and leave. No violence, very professional,” Dati said on TF1.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said the thieves entered the Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) building and made off with eight priceless objects.
Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; Empress Eugénie’s diadem; and her large corsage-bow brooch – a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble.
AP, Bloomberg, Reuters
