Louvre Robbery: How Thieves Carried Out An Audacious Heist of ‘Priceless’ Napoleonic Jewels

The Louvre reopened to long lines on Wednesday, just three days after a daring daylight robbery left one of the world’s most visited museums reeling. Visitors crowded beneath the glass pyramid as staff lifted barriers and resumed tours, though the Apollo Gallery—home to the stolen jewels—remained sealed off behind temporary partitions.

Investigators say the thieves entered and exited the museum in under four minutes on Sunday morning, escaping with eight pieces from France’s Crown Jewels. The stolen items include emerald- and sapphire-encrusted diadems, necklaces, and brooches once worn by the wives of Napoleon Bonaparte and other 19th-century royals. Officials estimate the value of the collection at roughly $100 million.

The theft, which occurred just steps from the Mona Lisa, has renewed scrutiny of security and staffing at the Louvre, where employees have long warned of under-resourcing and overcrowding. A staff strike earlier this year cited chronic understaffing and “too few eyes on too many rooms.”

The heist has also placed President Emmanuel Macron and Louvre director Laurence des Cars under renewed pressure.

Macron on Sunday referred to the incident as “an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history,” and vowed to “recover the works” and bring the perpetrators “to justice.”

Read More: The Last Time the Louvre Was Robbed

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the robbery was "a major, highly organized operation" carried out by a team that had done scouting. He told local French radio that the robbers utilized a disc cutter to slice through panes in order to access the jewels.

Here is what we know about the robbery and how the thieves carried it out:

They used a construction site as cover

French daily newspaper Le Parisien reported that four thieves, masked and hooded, arrived on motor scooters and two entered the Museum via the Seine-facing facade at around 9:30 a.m. local time, shortly after the museum’s opening. Construction work aided their heist, as a cherry picker allowed them to access the Apollo Gallery jewel room directly on the first floor, which is less than 300 yards from the famed Mona Lisa.

Culture Minister Dati told French news outlet TF1 that surveillance footage of the theft showed the thieves entering "calmly" and smashing display cases containing the jewels. Dati said there was "no violence" during the heist, which she described as "very professional."

Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin later acknowledged serious failures, saying that the fact a freight lift could be installed on a public street outside the Louvre without being detected “shows that our systems must be reassessed.” He added that the incident “projects a negative image of France” and confirmed that a full security review is underway.

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Photographs from the scene on Sunday showed investigators focusing on a ladder against the south-east corner of the building, overlooking the River Seine. The ladder is mounted onto a mechanised lift and touches a balcony on the upper floor of the museum. The thieves allegedly parked the monte-meubles, or basket lift, outside the Louvre on purpose.

The thieves attempted to set the basket lift on fire but were prevented from doing so by security officers, which allowed authorities to recover evidence. 

A tour guide told CNN that he heard what he described as “stomping” on the windows in the morning, shortly before being told by security to evacuate the museum.

“I was just trying to figure out what’s happening when I saw the museum staff going to that noise. Then they did a turn around, like real quick, and they started running and saying ‘get out, get out, get out, get out, evacuate!’” Ryan el Mandari told the outlet.

Read More: How to Steal a Masterpiece: Advice from the World’s Greatest Art Thief

An escape on a scooter

Following the swift robbery, the thieves reportedly escaped on two Yamaha 'TMax' scooters—which have a powerful 560cc engine—and headed in the direction of a nearby highway.

Investigators are now studying the escape route used by the robbers in their attempt to find them. Culture Minister Rachida Dati said that authorities have located a motorcycle with a license plate.  

Staffing issues

Staffing has been a persistent issue at the Louvre in recent months, with staff strikes closing the museum for hours this summer after they raised concerns about overcrowding and mass tourism at the museum.

In 2023, the museum decided to limit visitors to just 30,000 a day—a third of their previous limit. The Louvre boasted 8.7 million visitors in 2024 alone.

Although it is unclear whether staffing issues contributed to the theft, unions shared in June this year that staff were still under immense pressure, with too few eyes on too many entrances, exits, and visitors.

The jewels were priceless historic items

It is understood that eight items were taken from the Apollo Gallery, which houses what is left of the French crown jewels, most of which were stolen after the French Revolution.

The collection consists of pieces owned by the Emperor Napoleon, his nephew Napoleon III, and their wives, the empresses Marie-Louise and Eugenie.

Le Parisien reported that one jewel, the Crown of Empress Eugenie, was later found abandoned and damaged outside the Museum.

Alexandre Giquello, president of the Drouot auction house, said the crown alone was worth "several tens of millions of euros—just this crown. And it's not, in my opinion, the most important item."

"Ideally, the perpetrators would realise the gravity of their crime and the dimension they've entered into, and return the items, since the jewels are completely unsellable," Giquello told Reuters.

The Culture and Interior ministries held an emergency meeting on Monday where officials agreed to assess existing security measures in other French institutions, according to Reuters.  

A history of heists

This was not the first high-profile heist at the famous museum. In fact, over a hundred years ago, in 1911, a former Louvre employee named Vincenzo Peruggia stole the famous “Mona Lisa” in the hopes of returning it to its original home country of Italy. Painter Pablo Picasso and poet Guillaume Apollinaire were questioned by the police.

At the time, Da Vinci’s masterpiece was not the world-renowned painting it is today, but the theft helped it grow in fame, with people traveling the world to glimpse it. Twenty-eight months after the heist, Peruggia attempted to sell the painting in Florence, which allowed him to be caught and for the Mona Lisa to be returned to the Louvre.

In 1983, two pieces of 16th-century Italian armor were stolen from the Louvre in a mysterious heist that was solved in 2021 when the breastplate and ceremonial helmet, thought to have been made in the 16th century, were found in an auction in Bordeaux, France.

In 1976, three burglars climbed up the scaffolding on the side of the museum and smashed a window and glass casing, all to steal the diamond-studded sword used in the coronation of King Charles X in 1824. The case remains unsolved, and the artifact is still missing from the museum.

Correction, October 23

The original version of this story misspelled the name of the man who stole the Mona Lisa. It was Vincenzo Peruggia, not Vincenzo Perugia. In addition, the original version of this story misstated how many thieves entered the Louvre; two of the four remained outside.