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Thieves armed with electrical equipment committed an audacious crime in broad daylight Louvre Museum On Sunday, Amulya left with eight items jewelery From the Galerie d’Apollon, home of the French crown jewels.
Authorities said the robbery occurred around 9:30 a.m., shortly after the museum opened.
Using a basket lift mounted on a truck, the intruders reached a second-floor window and cut the glass with a disc cutter, before smashing a display case and fleeing on a motorcycle, authorities said.
Interior Minister Laurent Núñez described it as a “major robbery” involving “jewelry that has real heritage value and is, in fact, priceless”.
Authorities have now released the full list of items taken during the robbery, which also included a necklace, a brooch and a tiara from Napoleon’s royal collection. A tiara that had belonged to Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, was dropped by thieves and later recovered nearby. However, it was damaged by this incident.
The French Ministry of Culture confirmed the stolen items:
- A tiara, necklace and an earring from the set of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense
- An emerald necklace and a pair of emerald earrings from the Queen Marie Louise set
- A brooch known as a “relic brooch”
- A tiara belonging to Empress Eugenie
- A large corsage bow brooch belonging to Empress Eugenie.
According to the museum’s website, the crown of Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense’s set is “composed of five articulated elements, each with a large sapphire at the top. Overall [there are] 24 sapphires, of which 10 [are] very small, and 1,083 diamonds,
The Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense sapphire set belonged to the wife of King Louis-Philippe, while the Empress Marie Louise emerald set was a gift to Napoleon’s second wife.
The Empress Eugénie tiara, the large corsage brooch and the “relic brooch” were part of the collection of Napoleon III’s wife, created in the 1850s.
The Eugenie brooch alone has 2,438 diamonds.
Culture Minister Rachida Dati said the robbery lasted less than four minutes. He said footage of the operation showed that thieves “don’t target people, they enter quietly in four minutes, break the display case, take their stuff and leave”.
TF1 quoted him as saying, “No violence, very professional.”
The Louvre, which attracts thousands of visitors a day, was closed for the day for “exceptional reasons”.
Forensic teams are at the spot and police are reviewing CCTV footage to identify the culprits. Eyewitnesses said chaos broke out as police closed the museum gate and nearby roads.
Art detective Arthur Brand described the robbery as “the Theft He told Sky News that “the police will only have a week to find the culprits”.
“These crown jewels are so famous that you can’t sell them,” Mr. Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold, break the diamonds, try to cut them. That way they will probably disappear forever.”
He continued: “They [the police] It’s one week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff may still be there. If it takes too long, the loot will likely run out and be destroyed. It’s a race against time.”
President Emmanuel Macron vowed swift justice and said France would “reclaim actions”. He said: “The theft at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history.”
Experts have described it as the most daring robbery since the disappearance of the Louvre in 1911. mona lisaWhich was recovered in Florence two years later.