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A few days later, it took only a few minutes for the thieves to steal eight pieces French crown jewels from louvreA former bank robber says he warned a museum official about serious vulnerabilities – including jewelery cases from street-side windows, which were “a piece of cake” to attack.
David Desclos talks like he was: a professional who knew how to silence the alarm. Just outside I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, the reformed thief said he had marked the gallery windows and nearby display cases years ago, when the Louvre invited him to the Apollo Galleries for its 2020 in-house podcast about the historic theft of 1792.
“Have you seen those windows? They’re a piece of cake. You can imagine anything – people in disguise, coming in through the windows,” he said, adding that he had told a senior official involved in the Louvre’s podcast production – not the museum director – about the risk. “There are lots of ways to get in, through windows – even through roofs.”
Then Sunday’s robbery happened. Authorities say two thieves wearing high-visibility vests broke a window of the Apollo Gallery and used power tools to cut open boxes. Eight crown-jewel objects – valued by some reports at more than $100 million – disappeared within minutes. The ninth piece, Queen Eugenie’s diamond-studded tiara, was found on the ground outside the museum, damaged but able to be saved. Two suspects have been arrested; Others live on a larger scale.
“Exactly what I predicted,” Desclos said. “They came through the windows… They came, they took, and they left.”
He argues that the timing was part of the ploy. “Do it in broad daylight, at opening time – that disarms the first alarm layer… you know you have five to seven minutes before the police arrive.”
There’s a breakdown choreography, he says: rehearsals, a stopwatch, muscle memory.
Were display cases a weak spot?
At the top of the list of their weak points is the 2019 overhaul of the Apollo Gallery display cases. Desclos – who has slicked-back hair and a larger-than-life personality – says the old display cases were designed so that, in an attack, the treasures could fall out safely; Without that feature new artifacts made the artifacts vulnerable.
As he said: “It is beyond comprehension that they would replace the cases to keep the jewelry out of their reach. You are making it easier for thieves.”
The Louvre has rejected such criticism, saying that the new vitrines are safer and meet modern standards.
And then there was a glowing soft spot. “When I saw that specific window, I thought: They’re crazy.”
Desclos says he raised those concerns with a Louvre official after the podcast recording and avoided highlighting the vulnerabilities on air.
“I couldn’t say on the podcast, ‘Go burglarize.’ “This may have given the idea to many other people,” he told the AP.
The Louvre did not immediately respond to the AP’s request for comment. The AP has heard the podcast and confirmed Desclos’s presence on it, but his account of warning a museum official could not be immediately verified.
An ex-con with a colorful story
If the messenger sounds unlikely, so does his resume. He grew up in Cain, normandyBegan stealing food as a child, broke into department stores and banks, and specialized in disarming alarm systems. He says that in the late 1990s he and his colleagues spent months tunneling through the city sewers to reach the Societe Generale bank vault at Christmas.
Incredibly, Desclos has reinvented himself as a stand-up comedian, performing a show inspired by his past called ‘Hold-Up’.
Desclos insists that despite his notorious former career, he has no clue on the famous museum breach.
security is being calculated Paris archive
The scope of investigation of robbery is increasing. Paris police chief Patrice Faure is scheduled to speak in French management committee A session on Wednesday highlighted the widespread threats to museum security and theft.
The Louvre figures have been visible for months. In June, a spontaneous staff strike – which also included security personnel – forced the museum to close as workers protested unruly crowds, chronic understaffing and what one union called “untenable” conditions, leaving thousands of ticketed visitors stranded beneath Pei’s pyramid.
As far as life after the heist goes, Desclos quickly lets go of the glamour. “There is a 90-95% chance that the jewels will be broken up and put into blocks stone by stone,” he said.
His prescription is clear: preserve the original; Show replicas. “The real people should be at the Banque de France,” he said. French media report that after the robbery, the remaining crown-jewel pieces were taken to the national gold reserves and Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, secured in the central bank’s deep vaults.
“They should have listened,” Desclos said.