By Brodie Erk
Up until October 19, 2025, jewel heists from high end art museums seemed like the stuff of fiction to many, including myself. I thought it impossible that a museum, especially the most visited museum in the world, could be so careless as to allow themselves to fall victim to robbery in the age of modern security systems, but it happened nonetheless. In the end, all but one item of the French crown jewels were stolen, worth a staggering 102 million dollars together (without factoring in their near priceless historical worth) and none have yet to be recovered.
So how did this happen? Contrary to what you may be thinking, the heist was not the result of incredible skill or genius planning a la Ocean’s Eleven, nor even brute force and the use of deadly weapons. Instead the robbery was fraught with an almost comical degree of error. To quote reformed jewel thief Larry Lawton, “There’s too many things that makes them amateurs…They made all the classic mistakes.” The criminals drove a stolen cherry picker to the second floor window of the Apollo gallery, armed only with power tools, which they used to cut their way inside. Then, they broke open the display cases containing the crown jewels and fled as fast as possible, leaving behind a dropped crown and several power tools, which were later used as evidence. Before the guards could stop them, they attempted to set fire to their cherry picker and drove away on motor scooters.
The only really impressive thing about the heist was the nerve it took to conduct it; the fact that it worked out initially does not reflect well on the burglars so much as it reflects disgracefully on the Louvre. In fact, the failures by law enforcement and the Museum’s security were arguably much worse and more numerous.
Firstly, the cherry picker which the thieves used was stolen nine days beforehand, meaning that the criminals could have been locked up before they ever got the chance to steal the jewels. Secondly, the windows to the gallery were easy to cut through, and the alarms that sounded as a result played throughout the whole building, without giving a hint as to where the theft was occurring. Thirdly, security guards at the museum were customarily unarmed and backed down from the thieves when threatened with power tools. Fourthly, no one pursued the suspects as they left the building. In fact, the only thing proactively done by security was putting out the fire in the cherry picker.
In a twist of fate so disastrous it has prompted many online to question whether or not the event was an inside job, the display cases for the jewels had recently been changed. While the older, more secure and decorative boxes would have dropped the jewels into a vault during the break in, the newer cubes of glass and metal did not. Why would the Louvre replace more beautiful and secure cases with worse ones? According to a pre-theft statement by the Museum, it was to counter their elitist image.
So what happens now? For the sake of what dignity the Louvre has left, I hope that the jewels are recovered, but that doesn’t seem likely. Three out of four suspects have been caught, but according to Christopher Marinello, an expert in the field of art recovery, “they’re not going to tell you where they (the jewels) are or who their compatriots are.” As unfortunate as that is, it provides a clear path forward. The Louvre needs to step up its security, so that the world doesn’t lose another group of priceless artifacts again. If they fail, they may not be the most visited museum in the world for long.
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