{"id":132931,"date":"2025-10-20T00:35:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T00:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/132931\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T00:35:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T00:35:12","slug":"thieves-made-away-with-priceless-jewels-in-robbery-at-louvre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/132931\/","title":{"rendered":"Thieves made away with ‘priceless jewels’ in robbery at Louvre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre on Sunday morning and, as tourists were already inside, forced a window, smashed display cases and fled with jewels of \u201cinestimable value\u201d, France\u2019s interior minister said.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s most-visited museum closed for the day as police sealed gates and ushered visitors out during an investigation into the brazen, seven-minute strike.<\/p>\n

\u201cA robbery took place this morning at the opening of the Louvre museum,\u201d culture minister Rachida Dati wrote on X.<\/p>\n

The museum cited \u201cexceptional reasons\u201d for the closure. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

Around 9.30am, several intruders forced open a window, stole jewels from display cases and escaped on two-wheelers, according to the interior ministry.<\/p>\n

It said forensic work was under way and that a precise inventory of the stolen objects was being compiled, adding that the items had \u201cinestimable\u201d historical value.<\/p>\n

Ms Dati and Mr Nunez were on site with museum leadership.<\/p>\n

Video from the scene showed confused tourists being ushered out of the glass pyramid and surrounding courtyards as officers shut the iron gates and closed nearby streets along the Seine.<\/p>\n

Mr Nunez called the incident a \u201cmajor robbery\u201d, saying the intruders had entered from the outside using a basket lift.<\/p>\n

He said on France Inter radio that the heist took seven minutes and that the thieves had used a disc cutter to slice through the panes.<\/p>\n

He said it was \u201cmanifestly a team that had done scouting\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA basket lift used by thieves is seen at the Louvre museum Sunday Oct.19, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo\/Alexander Turnbull)<\/p>\n

The heist occurred in the Galerie d\u2019Apollon, a vaulted hall in the Denon wing that displays part of the French crown jewels beneath a ceiling painted by King Louis XIV\u2019s court artist, according to the ministry.<\/p>\n

French daily newspaper Le Parisien reported the thieves entered via the Seine-facing facade, where construction is under way, and used a freight lift to reach the gallery.<\/p>\n

After breaking windows, they reportedly took nine pieces from the jewellery collection of Napoleon and the empress.<\/p>\n

One stolen jewel was later found outside the museum, the paper reported, adding that the item was believed to be Empress Eugenie\u2019s crown and that it had been broken.<\/p>\n

Security around marquee works remains tight.<\/p>\n

The Mona Lisa is protected by bulletproof glass and a custom high-tech display system as part of broader anti-theft measures across the museum.<\/p>\n

Staffing and protection have been flashpoints at the Louvre. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions have warned that mass tourism strains security and visitor management.<\/p>\n

\"PolicePolice officers work by a basket lift used by thieves Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 at the Louvre museum in Paris. (AP Photo\/Thibault Camus)<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday\u2019s theft.<\/p>\n

In January, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a decade-long Louvre New Renaissance plan \u2014 roughly \u20ac700 million to modernise infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece its own dedicated gallery by 2031 \u2014 but workers say relief has been slow to reach the floor.<\/p>\n

The theft, less than half-an-hour after doors opened, echoes other recent European museum raids.<\/p>\n

In 2019, thieves smashed display cases in Dresden\u2019s Green Vault and carried off diamond-studded royal jewels worth hundreds of millions of euros. In 2017, burglars at Berlin\u2019s Bode Museum stole a 100kg (220lb) solid-gold coin. In 2010, a lone intruder slipped into Paris\u2019s Museum of Modern Art and escaped with five paintings, including a Picasso.<\/p>\n

The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former worker who hid inside the museum and walked out with the painting under his coat.<\/p>\n

It was recovered two years later in Florence \u2014 an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s portrait the world\u2019s best-known artwork.<\/p>\n

Home to more than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and painting \u2014 from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters \u2014 the Louvre\u2019s star attractions aside from the Mona Lisa, include the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.<\/p>\n

The museum can draw up to 30,000 visitors a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thieves used a basket lift to reach the Louvre on Sunday morning and, as tourists were already inside,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[4488,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,8506,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-132931","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-irish-examiner-instagram","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-place-international","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}