Thieves wielding power tools have struck at the famed Louvre Museum in Paris, stealing priceless jewels in a brazen heist that took just four minutes, according to the government.
The thieves struck at about 9:30am (07:30 GMT) when the museum had already opened its doors to the public and entered the Galerie d’Apollon building, which is home to the French crown jewels, the Ministry of the Interior said in a statement on Sunday.
“The investigation has begun, and a detailed list of the stolen items is being compiled. Beyond their market value, these items have priceless heritage and historical value,” the statement said, adding that no injuries were reported, either among the public or among Louvre staff or law enforcement officers.
Culture Minister Rachida Dati said the daring heist was over in four minutes, and that one of the stolen jewellery pieces was found near the museum.
“We came immediately, a couple of minutes after we received information of this robbery. To be completely honest, this operation lasted almost four minutes – it was very quick. We have to say that these are professionals,” she said.
The Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum and home to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, said on X it would remain closed for the day for “exceptional reasons”.
Footage from outside the museum showed chaotic scenes as police closed its gates and nearby roads, resulting in crowds of confused tourists outside the complex.
Speaking to France Inter radio, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said “jewels of inestimable value” were stolen in what he described as a “major robbery”.
He said the thieves used a basket lift to reach the museum’s windows before cutting the panes “with a disc cutter” to enter the targeted gallery, before escaping on motorbikes.
French daily Le Parisien reported that the thieves entered the museum, housed in a former palace, via the facade facing the Seine, where construction work is under way. The newspaper said the criminals reportedly stole “nine pieces from the jewellery collection of Napoleon and the Empress”, adding that a crown belonging to Empress Eugenie was later found broken outside the museum.
The Louvre has a long history of thefts, most famously in 1911, when the Mona Lisa was stolen by a former worker. It was recovered two years later in Florence, Italy.
In 1983, two Renaissance-era pieces of armour were stolen from the Louvre and were recovered nearly four decades later.
Several French museum have recently been targeted.
Last month, thieves broke into Paris’s Natural History Museum, making off with gold samples worth 600,000 euros ($700,000). They used an angle grinder and a blow torch to steal the native gold, a metal alloy containing gold and silver in their natural unrefined form.
In November last year, four thieves stole snuffboxes and other precious artifacts from another Paris museum in broad daylight, breaking into a display case with axes and baseball bats. They snuck into the Cognacq-Jay museum wearing gloves, hoods and helmets, striking in full view of other visitors to the museum.
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