A shocking burglary occurred at the Louvre Museum in France on the morning of the 19th local time. The museum issued a notice that night confirming that the famous exhibition hall on the second floor – Galerie d’Apollon – was broken into by an unidentified gang and several precious royal jewels were stolen. According to the latest news, the police and the Ministry of Culture have jointly launched an emergency investigation. Currently, the Louvre has temporarily closed some exhibition areas to cooperate with security checks.
Incident Details: A “Perfect Theft” completed in 7 minutes
According to the initial investigation by the French police, the theft occurred around 9:30 a.m., during the preparatory stage before the opening of the Louvre. Surveillance footage shows that at least four suspects were involved in the crime. They drove a truck equipped with a lifting basket and parked it on the north side of the museum. They quickly climbed to the second-floor windowsill through the basket. The suspect disguised himself as a maintenance worker, wearing a yellow high-visibility work vest to deceive others.
After entering the gallery, they used a chainsaw and an Angle grinder to cut the glass display cases and took out many exhibits in just a few minutes. The alarm system was triggered during the cutting process, but due to system delays and manual verification procedures, the suspect had already fled the scene when the security guards arrived. The entire theft lasted only about seven minutes from the intrusion to the evacuation.
Some broken glass, tool marks, and a hat suspected to be left behind by the suspect were left at the scene. The Paris Prosecutor’s Office has now classified the case as “organized crime theft” and established a special task force to conduct an investigation.
Stolen collection: French royal jewelry has gone missing again
The Louvre officially announced that all the stolen artifacts belong to the French royal jewelry collection, including a queen’s necklace set with sapphires, a diamond brooch, and some 19th-century royal headwear. These jewels originally belonged to the royal collection during the reign of Napoleon III and possess extremely high artistic and historical value.
Some of the collection was scattered after the French Revolution and was later repurchased and restored by the Ministry of Culture over many years. It was exhibited again at the Apollo Gallery in 2021. Experts point out that these jewels not only have extremely high gold and silver values, but also bear significant witness to the succession of the French royal family and the history of European court art. “None of them can be replicated,” Louis Francois, a French heritage restoration expert, said in an interview. “This theft is equivalent to tearing off a page in the history of French culture.”
Authorities’ response: Macron has spoken out, and the Louvre has urgently closed some exhibition areas
French President Emmanuel Macron posted on social media on the evening of the 19th: “This is an attack on French culture and history.” We will spare no effort to recover the lost items and leave no place for the criminals to hide.
French Culture Minister Catherine Col also announced the establishment of an interdepartmental investigation team to conduct a comprehensive review of the security systems of major museums across the country. She said that this incident “exposed technical loopholes in the protection of display cases and the response time of alarm systems in high-level museums.”
The management of the Louvre stated in the announcement that, to cooperate with the police investigation, the Apollo Gallery and adjacent exhibition areas will be temporarily closed. The opening hours of other areas will be determined based on the results of the security assessment. The museum also urges the public to provide any suspicious clues and reminds the cultural relics trading market to be vigilant against potential illegal jewelry circulation.
The modus operandi and international attention
Several international media outlets reported that the suspect’s modus operandi was “extremely professional”. They are clearly very familiar with the internal structure and security blind spots of the Louvre and may have conducted on-site investigations in advance. The police believe that this case shares a “similar modus operandi” with many high-value cultural relic thefts in Europe in recent years, such as the theft of jewelry from the Palais Grini in Germany in 2023 and the robbery of gold jewelry from the Turin Museum in Italy in 2024.
The Guardian of the UK commented that the Apollo Gallery, known as the “Corridor of the Crown” for its collection of France’s most representative jewelry and decorative arts, has undoubtedly dealt a severe blow to the cultural image of France. The New York Times of the United States pointed out that the response speed of the French security department in preventing high-tech theft urgently needs to be upgraded, especially against the backdrop of the long-term lack of updates to the security systems of museums. This case may become a turning point for the security reform of European museums.
Public reaction and safety concerns
After the incident was exposed, Parisians expressed shock and anger on social media. Someone wrote: “This is not a theft, but a cultural disaster.” Some people also question whether the Louvre’s security budget is sufficient to cope with modern criminal technologies.
Security experts point out that currently, museums generally rely on automatic alarms and infrared sensing systems, but the true strength of defense still depends on the speed of human response. Some exhibition halls still have problems, such as “night blind spots” and “insufficient human defense”, and high-value exhibits may be forcibly damaged within minutes if they do not use multiple layers of protective glass.
The French government plans to hold an emergency cultural security meeting in the coming weeks to discuss whether to add national-level cultural relic protection standards and require museums to be equipped with real-time networked alarm systems and AI monitoring and recognition technology.
Follow-up investigations and international cooperation
The Paris prosecutor’s office has issued an alert through Interpol, asking global jewelry trading markets, private auction houses, and art insurance companies to assist in monitoring the circulation of suspicious items. French police have currently obtained some of the escape routes and speculate that the suspect might have fled northward via the Paris Ring Expressway.
The Louvre said that they have entered all the stolen cultural relics into the global Art Loss Register. Once they appear in the international market, the freezing and investigation procedures will be triggered immediately. The Ministry of Culture is also studying the possibility of cooperating with many European countries through diplomatic channels to prevent cultural relics from flowing into the black market.
Conclusion
This theft case is not only a major test for the French security system, but also has raised the alarm of global cultural institutions. The lights at the Apollo Gallery have temporarily gone out, but this incident reminds the world that the protection of art and civilization requires not only glass and steel, but also continuous systems and vigilance.
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