A chainsaw-wielding gang pulled off a high-speed heist at the Louvre Museum in France, on Sunday morning, stealing priceless Napoleon-era jewelry worth millions of euros in a raid that lasted just seven minutes, French authorities said.
The audacious daylight robbery forced the sudden evacuation of thousands of visitors from the world’s most visited museum as police launched a major investigation into one of the most brazen cultural thefts in recent French history.
According to investigators, three suspects carried out the attack shortly after 9 a.m., scaling the historic museum’s stone walls from the Seine River side using a ladder attached to a flat-bed truck. They gained entry to the building through a freight elevator currently being used for construction, bypassing traditional security checkpoints.
Once inside, the thieves used power tools — including chainsaws and disc cutters — to break through a gallery window and smash their way into a display housing the Napoleon and Empress Joséphine jewelry collection. In minutes, they made off with nine glittering pieces, including a necklace, a brooch, and a tiara, before fleeing toward the A6 motorway on a TMax scooter.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called it a “major robbery,” noting that the operation was “highly organized” and executed with precision. The thieves entered using a cherry picker and targeted some of the most valuable jewels in French history. One of the stolen crowns, once worn by Empress Eugénie de Montijo, wife of Napoleon III, was found shattered below a Louvre window after the gang made their escape.
Tourists described scenes of chaos as alarms sounded and police cleared the plaza surrounding the Louvre. “We got to the plaza around 10 a.m., and by 10:30 staff started telling us the Louvre was closed because someone had tried to steal something inside,” one British tourist said. “Police and military arrived, and it got pretty chaotic. People were still taking selfies as we were evacuated.”
Culture Minister Rachida Dati confirmed the robbery on X (formerly Twitter), stating, “A robbery took place this morning at the opening of the @MuseeLouvre. No injuries to report. I am on site alongside the museum teams and the police. Investigations underway.”
The museum announced an unscheduled full-day closure “for exceptional reasons,” as detectives from the Banditism Repression Brigade (BRB) and the Central Office for Combating Trafficking in Cultural Property began analyzing CCTV footage. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility that the perpetrators are foreign nationals.
The stolen collection dates back to the early 19th century, after Napoleon and Joséphine were crowned Emperor and Empress in 1804. Many pieces were looted from royal households during the French Revolution or seized across the Napoleonic Empire, making the collection among the most historically valuable in France.
Police believe the gang may have been working on commission for wealthy private collectors. Experts warn that stolen high-value art and jewels often disappear into private collections, never to reach the black market.
The Louvre, home to masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, welcomes up to nine million visitors a year and is regarded as one of the most secure cultural sites in Europe. Yet the incident echoes a series of high-profile Paris art thefts, including the infamous 1911 Mona Lisa heist and the 2010 theft of five masterpieces worth nearly £100 million from the Paris Museum of Modern Art.
The investigation is ongoing as authorities work to identify the suspects and recover the stolen jewelry.
thesun.co.uk
