The Louvre’s Crown Jewel Heist Is Now A Race Against Time For Authorities — And The Brazen Thieves

PARIS (AP) — Sparkling sapphires, emeralds and diamonds that once adorned France’s royal family may be gone forever, experts said Tuesday, after a brazen four-minute heist in broad daylight stunned the country and left the government struggling to explain the new debacle at the Louvre.

Every piece stolen The emerald necklace and earrings, two tiaras, two brooches, a sapphire necklace and a single earring represent the pinnacle of 19th-century “haute joaillerie” or fine jewelry. But for the royal family, they were more than decoration. The pieces were political statements about the wealth, power and cultural importance of France. And they are so important that they were among the treasures rescued from the government’s 1887 auction of most of the crown jewels.

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, who is leading the investigation, said on Tuesday that the stolen jewels were worth an estimated $102 million (88 million euros) in monetary terms, but she also noted that the estimate did not include historical value. About 100 investigators are currently involved in police efforts to find the suspects and the jewelry, the official said.

The theft of the crown jewels has left the French government scrambling once again to explain the latest embarrassment at the Louvre, which is struggling with overcrowded and outdated facilities. In 2024, activists threw a can of soup at the Mona Lisa. And the museum in June brought to a halt by its own striking staff who complained mass tourism. President Emmanuel Macron announced that the Mona Lisa, which was stolen by a former museum employee in 1911 and recovered two years later, will be returned. get your own room Under major renovation.

The sparkling jewels, artefacts of long-ago French culture, are now probably being dismantled secretly and hastily sold as individual pieces that may or may not be identified as part of the French crown jewels, experts said.

Tobias Kormind, general manager of 77 Diamonds, one of Europe’s leading diamond jewelers, said in his statement: “It is extremely unlikely that these jewels will be found and seen again.” “If these jewels are broken down and sold, they will essentially be erased from history and lost to the world forever.”

Both intimate and public, the crown jewels are kept safe from the Tower of London to the Tokyo Imperial Palace as visual symbols of national identities.

In the Louvre case, the jewels were stolen from the old palace’s gilded Apollo Gallery, according to the museum’s website; itself a work of art made with “sun, gold and diamonds.” Minister of Internal Affairs Laurent Nunez said that more than 60 police inspectors were assigned to catch the four robbery suspects. The thieves split into two pairs, with two men in a truck climbing into the gallery with a cherry picker, Nunez said. Photos showed that the equipment’s ladder reached into the ground above street level.

Officials said the eight items taken were crown jewels, part of a collection whose origins date back to the 16th century, when King Francis I ruled that they belonged to the state. The Paris prosecutor’s office, which is leading the investigation, said two men in bright yellow jackets broke into the gallery at 9:34 a.m. (half an hour after opening time) and left the room at 9:38 a.m. before fleeing on two motorbikes.

Missing pieces include two crowns or diadems. Emperor III. One, given by Napoleon to Empress Eugenie in 1853 to celebrate their wedding, contains more than 200 pearls and nearly 2,000 diamonds. French officials said the latter was a starry sapphire and diamond headpiece, as well as a necklace and single earring, worn by Queen Marie-Amelie, among others.

Also stolen: a necklace of dozens of emeralds and more than 1,000 diamonds that was a wedding gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to his second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria, in 1810. Matching earrings were also stolen. French authorities said the thieves also seized a reliquary brooch and a large bodice bow worn by Empress Eugenie; both pieces were covered in diamonds.

The robbers dropped or abandoned a heavy ninth piece that was damaged: a tiara worn by Empress Eugenie, adorned with golden eagles, 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds.

Other items in the royal jewel collection, which included 23 jewels, were left untouched before the robbery, according to the Louvre. What remains, for example, is the plum-sized Regent, a white diamond said to be the largest of its kind in Europe.

Beyond the monetary value of the stolen jewelry, emotional loss is also felt intensely and is easier to measure. Many described France’s failure to secure its most valuable possessions as a wounding blow to national pride.

“These are family souvenirs from the French,” Conservative MP Maxime Michelet said in Parliament on Tuesday, questioning the government about the security of the Louvre and other cultural sites.

“Empress Eugenie’s crown, stolen, then dropped and found broken in the pit, has become a symbol of the decline of a nation that was once so admired,” Michelet said. “It is a shameful situation for our country, which cannot guarantee the security of the world’s largest museum.”

The theft was on Sunday Not the first Louvre robbery In recent years. But as one of the most high-profile museum thefts in living memory, it stood out for its foresight, speed and almost cinematic quality. In fact, this incident was a fictionalized example of a “gentleman thief” stealing the royal crown from the Louvre in the French television program “Lupin”, based on a 1905 story series.

According to one theft investigator, the romance of such theft is mostly an artifact of show business. Christopher A. Marinello, an attorney for Art Recovery International, said he has never seen a shady secret collector engage in “theft to order.”

“These criminals want to steal whatever they can,” Marinello said. “They chose this room because it was close to the window. They chose these jewels because they thought they could break them, remove their settings, take the diamonds, sapphires and emeralds abroad” to a dodgy dealer “who was willing to recut them” and no one would know what they were doing.

What’s happening now is a race against time for both the French authorities hunting down the thieves and the perpetrators, who will struggle to find buyers for the pieces in all their royal splendor.

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said, “No one will touch these objects. They are very famous. The weather is very hot. If you get caught, you will end up in prison.” “You can’t sell them, you can’t leave them to your children.”

Kellman reported from London. Associated Press writer Mike Corder contributed from The Hague, Netherlands.