The Louvre Museum in Paris was broken into on Sunday morning at opening time, by a group of hooded intruders who made off with antique jewelry that once belonged to Emperor Napoleon. The world-famous museum, which welcomed 9 million visitors from around the world in 2024, remains closed for the rest of the day.
The Louvre has yet to make an official statement, but Agence France-Press reports in vairous French media titles that the group accessed the museum from the Quais François Mitterand, used an external goods lift and breaking first-floor windows to get to the gallery they were interested in, where they broke open display cases. The incident occurred shortly after 9:30am.
According to Le Parisien newspaper, working with AFP, the intruders took advantage of building work that is ongoing at the Louvre to enter and made their way to the Galerie Apollon. While one of them kept watch, two men broke into display cases using chainsaws and made off with nine pieces of jewelry, including brooches, necklaces and tiaras worn by Empress Josephine, that were displayed in the Napoleon and French Sovereigns display cases.
The incident took place in the space of 7 minutes, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told the radio station France Inter this morning. One of the jewels – a crown belonging to Emperess Eugénie – was later found outside the Louvre, damaged.
The total value of the stolen goods has yet to be estimated, but the biggest diamond in the collection, the 140-carat Regent diamond, is safe. With the price of gold now topping $4,100/oz, speculation has begun as to whether the items will be dismantled, melted down and sold as raw materials, or find their way into the hands of private collectors. In mid-September the Museum of Natural History in Paris was robbed of several specimens of rough gold, thought to represent $70,000 and described at the time as “an invaluable loss for research and.
According to Rachida Dati, the French Minister of Culture who was at the Louvre with police and museum teams on Sunday morning, “no-one was injured” during the incident at the world’s most-visited museum.
Source: Forbes