A man arrested by French police earlier this week is thought to be the fourth member of the team that stole France’s crown jewels in a brazen heist from the Louvre Museum, the Paris prosecutor said Friday.
Prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office is heading the investigation, said the 39-year-old man has a criminal record, with six previous convictions.
He has now been handed preliminary charges of robbery by an organized gang, punishable by 15 years imprisonment, and criminal conspiracy, which can carry a 10-year sentence if he is convicted for his suspected role in the stunning Oct. 19 theft at the world’s most-visited museum. The robbery gang’s haul of loot was worth an estimated $102 million — a monetary value that didn’t include their huge historical value to France.
Police stand guard outside the Louvre museum at Louvre on October 19, 2025 in Paris, France.
Remon Haazen / Getty Images
The prosecutor’s statement didn’t say what role, exactly, the man is thought to have played in the daylight heist, carried out with angle grinders, a freight lift and subterfuge, with robbers dressed as workers in bright vests.
The robbery is believed to have been the work of a four-person team — with two people breaking into the museum’s Apollo Gallery where the jewels were displayed and then being whisked away on motorbikes by two associates who waited outside.
The jewels haven’t been recovered. The thieves made off with a haul including a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
The thieves took less than eight minutes to force their way into the museum and leave, using a freight lift to reach the building’s window. Footage from museum cameras showed that the two who broke into the ornate Apollo Gallery used grinders to cut into jewelry display cases.
The emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds, was later found outside the museum.
Four more people were arrested Tuesday in the investigation into last month’s spectacular daylight heist of imperial jewels from the Louvre Museum, French authorities announced.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office is heading the investigation, described the suspects as two men aged 38 and 39 and two women aged 31 and 40 from the Paris region.
Her statement didn’t say what role they’re suspected of having played in the Oct. 19 theft. Police can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
The loot, valued at around $102 million, hasn’t been recovered. It includes a diamond-and-emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels tied to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s pearl-and-diamond tiara.
The thieves dropped a diamond-and-emerald-studded crown that once belonged to Eugénie, the wife of Napoleon III, as they escaped.
A police dragnet has previously caught other suspected members of the four-person team thought to have carried out the daring robbery. Investigating magistrates have filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.
The heist unfolded when the Louvre, the world’s most-visited art museum, was raided in broad daylight. The gang took just seven minutes to steal the jewels before fleeing on scooters.
The thieves parked a moving truck with a ladder below the museum’s Apollo Gallery housing the jewels, ascended in a bucket, broke a window and used angle grinders to cut into glass display booths containing the treasures.
A basket lift used by thieves is seen at the Louvre Museum, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.
AP Photo/Alexander Turnbull
One of the men already charged in the heist, a 37-year-old, was in a relationship with the woman and they have children, Beccuau said earlier this month. The couple were arrested after their DNA was found in the basket lift used during the robbery. The man’s criminal record contained 11 previous convictions, most of them for theft, she said.
The first two men arrested earlier were also known to the police for having committed thefts. Both lived in the northeastern Paris suburb of Aubervilliers.
Last week, Louvre director Laurence des Cars revealed some new details about the security breach, saying the power tools used by robbers to cut through the display cases were meant for concrete.
“It’s a method that had not been imagined at all” when the display cases in the Apollo Gallery were replaced in 2019, she said Wednesday while telling lawmakers that new surveillance cameras and anti-intrusion systems will soon be installed at the Paris landmark. At the time, they had been designed primarily to counter an attack from inside the museum with weapons, she added.
Footage from museum cameras show that during the robbery, the display cases “held up remarkably well and did not break apart,” she said. “Videos show how difficult it was for the thieves.”
Des Cars stressed security improvement is a priority of the decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan launched earlier this year, with an estimated cost of up to 800 million euros ($933 million), to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the Mona Lisa a dedicated gallery by 2031.
With the Louvre crumbling under the weight of mass tourism, des Cars has restricted the daily number of visitors to 30,000 in recent years.
The famed glass pyramid inaugurated in 1989 was meant to welcome about 4 million visitors a year, she recalled. This year, already more than 8 million people have visited the Louvre.
The exterior of the Louvre Museum is seen weeks after a daylight heist exposed security flaws, in Paris, France, Nov. 17, 2025.
Paris — Five more people have been arrested in the investigation into the theft of crown jewels from the Louvre Museum, but the treasures remain missing, the Paris prosecutor announced Thursday.
The five were detained late Wednesday night in Paris and the Paris region, Prosecutor Laure Beccuau told RTL radio. She didn’t release their identities or other details.
One is suspected of being part of the four-person team that robbed the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery in broad daylight Oct. 19, the prosecutor said. Two other members of the team were arrested Sunday and given preliminary charges Wednesday of criminal conspiracy and theft committed by an organized gang. Both partially admitted their involvement, according to the prosecutor.
People wait for the opening of the Louvre museum on Oct. 30, 2025 in Paris.
“Searches last night and overnight did not allow us to find the goods,” Beccuau said.
It took thieves less than eight minutes to steal the jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million), shocking the world. The robbers forced open a window, cut into cases with power tools and fled with eight pieces of the French crown jewels.
But master jeweler and Parisian gem appraiser Stephen Portier told CBS News the thieves will struggle to sell the gems.
“The whole world knows about this robbery. Dealers will have pictures of every single piece up in their offices,” he said. “So if they think they’re being offered diamonds from the Louvre … they will ask some hard questions. And contact the police.”
Portier said the robbers robbers might have to recut the stolen gems, which would significantly decrease their value.
The Paris prosecutor said Wednesday that none of the French crown jewels stolen in the brazen daytime robbery of the landmark Louvre Museum had been located 10 days after the heist, and that the only two men detained so far in connection with the crime had partially admitted to a role in the theft.
“I want to remain hopeful that (the jewels) will be found and they can be brought back to the Louvre, and more broadly to the nation,” Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau told reporters.
She said the two suspects in custody were to be charged with theft and criminal conspiracy after “partially admitting to the charges.”
The jewels date back hundreds of years and are considered national treasures with an estimated value of some $102 million. Experts have told CBS News the elaborate pieces of jewelry may have already been broken down into their component parts, greatly diminishing their value, and they may never be found.
French police officers stand next to a furniture elevator used by robbers to enter the Louvre Museum, on Quai Francois Mitterrand, in Paris on Oct. 19, 2025.
DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
At least four people in total were seen on security camera video taking part in the robbery on Oct. 19, and Beccuau said at a news conference in the French capital on Wednesday afternoon that her office could not rule out the culprits being part of a larger criminal gang.
Dozens of detectives have been on the trail of the four thieves, who used a cherry-picker lift and cutting gear to break into a first-floor gallery at the world-renowned museum and then fled with the jewels.
But few details have emerged so far about how investigators have managed to track down the culprits, some of whom wore balaclavas and high-visibility vests.
The two men who were arrested Saturday in connection with the heist could be held only until Wednesday evening without being formally charged under French judicial rules, and Beccuau said they would be brought before magistrates with a view to “charging them with organized theft, which carries a 15-year prison sentence,” along with criminal conspiracy, punishable by 10 years.
A source close to the case this weekend said the men in their 30s were known to the police for committing thefts, and Beccuau said they were believed to be the ones who actually broke into the museum gallery, based in part on DNA evidence.
The two men hailed from Seine-Saint-Denis, a region just outside Paris, and one was arrested as he was about to board a plane for Algeria, the source said, requesting anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press.
After media reports of the detentions, Beccuau said authorities had “carried out arrests on Saturday evening,” and confirmed that “one of the men arrested was about to leave the country” from the capital’s Charles de Gaulle airport.
Several suspects are in custody one week after France’s crown jewels were stolen from the famed Louvre Museum, police in Paris say. Leigh Kiniry reports.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Sunday that arrests had been made in connection to the brazen crown jewel heist at the Louvre, with one suspect arrested at Charles De Gaulle Airport as he allegedly tried to flee the country. Thieves stole an estimated $100 million worth of jewels and gems during a brazen daytime robbery that took less than eight minutes.
Multiple people were arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, a Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the brazen heist at the world’s most visited museum.
The prosecutor said investigators made the arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris’ Roissy Airport.
French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.
French media reports that the Louvre has moved some of its most precious jewels out of the museum for safekeeping. The jewels were moved from the Apollo Gallery, the scene of Sunday’s heist, according to French radio.
PARIS — It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates.
Instinctively, he took the shot.
It wasn’t a particularly great photo, with someone’s shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.
But it did the job – showing French police sealing off the world’s most-visited museum after the brazen daylight robbery last Sunday.
Plus, Camus figured, the guy walking past the officers was unusually well dressed, in a coat, a jacket and tie and wearing a fedora, adding a touch of Paris couture to the scene.
And so off went the photo to AP’s worldwide audiences.
From there, fertile imaginations sprung into high gear – whipping up an online buzz.
Posts on social media declared the well-dressed man to be a French detective – if you will, a more dashing version of the famed Inspector Clouseau from “Pink Panther” movies – even though AP’s photo caption had not identified him.
It simply read: “Police officers block an access to the Louvre museum after a robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.”
A post on X that now has 5.6 million views says: “Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre.”
Another poster – with 1.2 million followers – claimed the man “who looks like he came out of a detective film noir from the 1940s is an actual French police detective who’s investigating the theft.”
Camus says nothing he saw led him to that conclusion – the man was just someone who streamed away from the Louvre as authorities evacuated the area, Camus says.
“He appeared in front of me, I saw him, I took the photo,” Camus says. “He passed by and left.”
If the unidentified man really is one of the more than 100 investigators hunting for the jewel thieves, the authorities are keeping it very hush-hush.
“We’d rather keep the mystery alive ;)” the Paris prosecutor’s office said with a wink in an email response to AP questions.
German businessman Alexander Böcker was reading the news with his wife last Sunday when she told him about a robbery at the Louvre in Paris.
“My wife said, ‘Well, look at this: Somebody broke into the Louvre. There’s a robbery going on!’” he recalled in an interview with CBS News.
Right away, his wife, Julia Scharwatz, noticed something familiar: the lift used in the robbery looked just like one that their company makes.
“If you know the product, you can really quickly identify that it was your product,” Böcker said on Friday.“It became clear to us that this is a reprehensible act, and they have used our machine for it.”
The machine was the Böcker Agilo, a lift that can be used in construction or to hoist furniture to apartments through upper-story windows.
French police officers stand next to a furniture elevator used by robbers to enter the Louvre Museum, on Quai Francois Mitterrand, in Paris on October 19, 2025.
DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images
It is just one of the machines that Böcker’s company — called Böcker — manufactures. And as more details of the robbery emerged — particularly that no one had been hurt — Böcker and Scharwatz, who works alongside her husband as the company’s head of marketing, began getting messages from colleagues and employees asking: “Can’t we make something out of it?”
The next day, the brainstorming began as they tried to think of new ways to advertise in the wake of the heist, which saw thieves run off with an estimated $102 million in jewels. The robbers used the Böcker lift to get to a second-story balcony where they accessed the Louvre by cutting through a window, and officials say they got in and out in just four minutes.
One proposed ad slogan was: “‘Well even criminal professionals are using the best machinery,’ something like that,” Böcker said.
But it was Scharwatz who had the winning idea — to focus on the speed of Böcker machines.
“We bought the picture, and then we had to decide: Shall we do it or not? And I said, ‘Well, I hope everybody gets our sense of humor.’ You know, normally, the Germans are not very famous for having a sense of humor,” Böcker said.
He said he felt like it was “a very thin line,” but because no one had been hurt, “we said: ‘Let’s go for it.’”
The final ad, published on social media, shows an image of the Böcker machine positioned outside the Louvre after the robbery.
“If you’re in a hurry,” the tagline says. That’s followed by details about the product: “The Böcker Agilo carries your treasures up to 400 kg at 42 m/min — quiet as a whisper thanks to its 230 V electric motor.”
The response to the campaign has been mixed. Many have found it funny, with some who work in marketing and advertising reaching out to the company calling it smart.
It has also gotten a lot of attention. Posts on the company’s social media sites typically draw 15,000-20,000 views per post, Böcker said, but this one garnered more than 4.3 million views on Instagram and Facebook.
“So, yeah, it is quite an unusual event for us,” Böcker said.
That publicity, though, has not translated into sales, at least yet.
“The normal customer base, especially in Europe, they know the product pretty well. We are (a) market leader in that segment,” Böcker said. “Maybe now, in other countries where this product is not so well known or not so known at all, there is maybe an interest.”
Böcker wanted to make clear, though, that neither he nor his company support the robbery at the Louvre.
“We are against, completely against, criminal activities, and we are also a serious company. 620 employees in Germany. Everything is produced in Germany, and we are also for safety,” Böcker said. “It was just a world event happening with one of our machines, and we tried to use it. And we really do not want … anybody to get bad feelings about that. And if so, we are sorry for that.”
Crown jewels that were stolen in a dramatic weekend heist at the Louvre are worth an estimated 88 million euros, or $102 million, not including their historical value to France, the Paris prosecutor said Tuesday.
About 100 investigators are now involved in the police hunt for the gems and heist suspects, said prosecutor Laure Beccuau, whose office is leading the investigation.
“The wrongdoers who took these gems won’t earn 88 million euros if they had the very bad idea of disassembling these jewels,” she said in an interview with broadcaster RTL. “We can perhaps hope that they’ll think about this and won’t destroy these jewels without rhyme or reason.”
Questions have arisen about security at the Louvre, the world’s most-visited museum, and whether security cameras might have failed as the thieves rode a basket lift up the Louvre’s facade, cut their way through a window, smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels on Sunday morning.
But France’s culture minister said Tuesday that the security apparatus installed at the Louvre worked properly during the theft.
“The Louvre museum’s security apparatus did not fail, that is a fact,” the minister, Rachida Dati, told lawmakers in the National Assembly. “The Louvre museum’s security apparatus worked.”
Dati said she launched an administrative inquiry that comes in addition to a police investigation to ensure full transparency into what happened. She did not offer any details about how the thieves managed to carry out their heist given that the cameras were working. But she described it as a painful blow for the nation.
The robbery was “a wound for all of us,” she said. “Why? Because the Louvre is far more than the world’s largest museum. It’s a showcase for our French culture and our shared patrimony.”
The necklace and earrings of the set of jewelry of Empress Marie-Louise displayed at Apollon’s Gallery on Jan. 14, 2020, at the Louvre museum in Paris.
STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Monday that the museum’s alarm was triggered when the window of the Apollo Gallery was broken into.
Police officers arrived on site two or three minutes after they were called by an individual that witnessed the scene, he said on LCI television. Officials said the heist lasted less than eight minutes in total, including less than four minutes inside the Louvre.
Nuñez did not disclose details about video surveillance cameras that may have filmed the thieves around and in the museum, pending a police investigation. “There are cameras all around the Louvre,” he said.
The theft focused on the gilded Apollo Gallery, where the Crown Diamonds are displayed. Eight objects were taken, according to officials: a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense; an emerald necklace and earrings from the matching set of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife; a reliquary brooch; and Empress Eugénie’s diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch, a prized 19th-century imperial ensemble.
Alain Bauer, a professor of criminology at France’s National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, told CBS News that a lot of DNA was left at the scene by the robbers, including on the crown of the empress Eugénie, which was left behind by the thieves as they made their getaway on motorcycles.
“We will catch them,” he said of the thieves. But he added: “I don’t think we will capture the jewels.”
The crown jewels are priceless in historical terms, but experts have told CBS News they would still be worth millions of dollars if broken up and sold on the black market.
The jewels were not privately insured, the French Ministry of Culture said in a statement to the daily newspaper Le Parisien. French law prohibits entities like the Louvre from insuring its property, except when part of a collection is moved or loaned to another institution, Romain Déchelette, president of France-based Serex Assurances, a fine art insurer, told CBS News.
The priceless jewels thieves stole from the Louvre museum in a brazen heist this week were not privately insured, the French Ministry of Culture said in a statement to the daily newspaper Le Parisien.
French law prohibits entities like the Louvre from insuring its property, except when part of a collection is moved or loaned to another institution, Romain Déchelette, president of France-based Serex Assurances, a fine art insurer, told CBS News.
Because the Louvre is a national museum, its collections are considered state property for which the state alone bears responsibility, according to Déchelette. The French Ministry of Culture did not immediately return a request for comment.
“Everything that belongs to state museums in France is uninsured, unless it leaves the museum,” Déchelette told CBS News.
Déchelette added that if any of the stolen crown jewels had left the museum for another exhibit, the price of insurance would have been calculated based on an estimated value.
“There is necessarily a value in the government accounts, and an estimate would be assigned with commissions and experts,” he explained.
Charlie Horrell, head of fine art at insurance broker Marsh, told CBS News that private insurance would cover the cost of any losses that were to occur during transit.
“It’s generally somebody dropping a painting, and we’d cover the repair and restoration cost of that painting, plus the depreciation of that piece,” he told CBS News.
In the case of the Louvre robbery, were the pieces to be insured privately, “there’s no question that if cover were in place, that claim would be paid out without issue,” he said.
The French law does not apply to collections housed in private museums, like the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris. “In that case it’s different, and they buy insurance,” Déchelette said.
“The state is its own insurer as long as the works belonging to national museums remain in their usual place of storage,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Culture said in a statement to Le Parisien.
As a result, neither the museum nor the government will receive any private insurance payments to cover the value of the stolen objects, according to Déchelette.
While French authorities are likely to locate the robbery suspects, they may not ever recover the stolen national treasures, a criminologist told CBS News.
“We will catch them,” Alain Bauer, a professor of criminology at France’s National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, told CBS News. “I don’t think we will capture the jewels.”
While the missing French crown jewels are widely considered to be priceless based on their historical value, they could be broken up into pieces, with the gems sold for millions on the black market, experts have told CBS News.
The heist raises concerns about the national museum’s security vulnerabilities. According to a recent security audit, 35% of the rooms in the Denon Wing, where the stolen jewels are displayed, are not monitored by security cameras, Radio France reported.
The thieves in Paris’ Louvre Museum heist are still on the run. New details of the brazen art theft on Sunday reveal the suspects left tools used in the heist, which unfolded in less than eight minutes, at the scene. CBS News’ Elizabeth Palmer reports.
In a swift robbery, which officials believe took place within seven minutes, thieves disguised as museum workers rode a truck-mounted basket lift up the famed museum’s exterior and forcibly entered through a window, just 30 minutes after the Louvre had opened for the day. After smashing display cases in the Galerie d’Apollon, the masked robbers fled the scene on motorbikes. Eight “objects of inestimable heritage value” were stolen, per France’s Ministry of Culture, and one item, an ornate gold crown, was recovered near the scene.
“Thanks to the professionalism and swift action of the Louvre’s agents, the criminals were put to flight, leaving behind their equipment and one of the stolen objects, namely the crown of Empress Eugénie, the condition of which is currently under review,” read a statement from the Ministry of Culture.
Empress Eugénie’s crown was discovered near the scene. (Stephane de Sakutin/AFP via Getty Images)
Art detective Arthur Brand said on Monday that police have only one week to find the missing jewels before they’re potentially gone forever. Because of how famous the jewels are, Brand told Sky News, the “only thing” the thieves can do is “melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds” and “try to cut them.” If this is done, he added, the jewelry “will probably disappear forever.”
“They [the police] have a week,” Brand told the outlet. “If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”
Below, Yahoo breaks down what was stolen.
Diamond and pearl tiara and diamond brooch
A tiara of Empress Eugénie. (Musée du Louvre)
Consisting of diamonds, oriental pearls and silver, Empress Eugénie’s tiara is considered one of the Louvre’s most prized pieces. The tiara, made by jeweler Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier in 1882, per the Louvre, is composed of 212 pearls and 1,999 diamonds and 992 rose-cut stones.
A diamond brooch that belonged to Empress Eugénie. (Musée du Louvre)
Empress Eugénie’s large bodice bow was also stolen in the heist. The item, which is made of diamonds, silver and gold, features tassels and articulated fringes. It was designed by jeweler François Kramer.
Composed of 2,438 diamonds and 196 rose-cut stones, the brooch also originally formed the buckle of a diamond belt of more than 4,000 stones, which was exhibited at the Universal Exhibition of 1855 before being worn by Empress Eugénie, according to the Louvre.
Eugénie, per CNN, reportedly wore the belt during a visit by Queen Victoria to the Palace of Versailles in 1855, and once more for the baptism of the Prince Imperial in 1856, before eventually transforming the item into a brooch.
Sapphire jewelry set
A sapphire and diamond set worn by Queen Hortense, Queen Marie-Amélie and Isabelle of Orléans. (Musée du Louvre)
A sapphire and diamond set, consisting of a tiara, necklace and single earring, was worn successively by Queen Hortense, Queen Marie-Amélie and Isabelle of Orléans. According to the Louvre, the articulated necklace is adorned with eight sapphires of varying sizes and 631 diamonds. The tiara and single earring are composed of Ceylon sapphires in their natural state.
While its origins and designer remain unknown, the Louvre considers the set “a precious testament to Parisian jewelry.”
Emerald necklace and earrings
Marie-Louise of Austria’s emerald set. (Musée du Louvre)
Napoleon delivered this set to Marie-Louise of Austria, his second wife, in 1810, with the intention of adding it to her personal jewelry case, according to the Louvre. Crafted by jeweler François-Régnault Nitot, the necklace is composed of 32 emeralds and 1,138 diamonds. The necklace and the pair of earrings, which were preserved in their original state, joined the Louvre’s collection in 2004.
‘Reliquary’ brooch
The reliquary brooch. (Musée du Louvre)
Created in 1855 by jeweler Paul-Alfred Bapst for Empress Eugénie, the diamond and gold brooch, known as the “reliquary brooch,” consists of seven diamonds surrounding a rosette, followed by two large diamonds that lie opposite each other, and additional diamonds that suspend from them. According to the museum, a total of 94 diamonds were used to craft this piece. On the back of the brooch are engravings of leaves and foliage.
The Louvre Museum in Paris will remain closed on Monday following a daring robbery in which eight priceless royal jewels were stolen in just seven minutes.
Police are still on the hunt for the four-person commando unit responsible for one of the boldest art heists the world has seen in years.
The robbery took place on Sunday morning around 9:30 am, half an hour after the museum had opened its doors.
The thieves used a truck equipped with a lift to break into the Galerie d’Apollon, home to some of France’s most historic treasures.
Armed with disk cutters, they smashed two display cases — one containing Napoleon’s jewels and the other the crown jewels of French monarchs — before fleeing on two scooters.
Related
Investigators later recovered tools, gloves, and two of the stolen pieces, including the damaged crown of Empress Eugénie. The crown, made of gold, features more than 1,300 diamonds. The second piece has not yet been identified.
According to French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, the thieves were highly skilled and potentially connected to an organised crime network.
A team of around 60 investigators from Paris’s anti-gang unit and the Office for Combating Cultural Property Trafficking are now leading the hunt.
The stolen jewels are nearly impossible to sell on the open market. Authorities are investigating whether the heist was commissioned by a third party or if the thieves intended to use the stones for money laundering.
Shock and awe
The heist has sparked strong reactions from politicians and visitors alike.
Tourists were left disappointed on Monday morning as a long queue formed outside the closed museum.
Rodrigo and Alicia, a couple from Spain, told Euronews they had bought their tickets one month ago.
“It is frustrating, we were really looking forward to visiting the Louvre for the first time,” they said in an interview.
Elaine and Christina, two sisters from Ireland, did not hide their fascination with the audacious heist.
“It feels like we’re a part of history, we just can’t even believe it. It’s amazing and shocking at the same time. It’s sad, and of course I hope they catch the people that did it, but for me it kind of heightens my experience,” said Elaine.
The French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin described the robbery as sending a very negative image of France to the world, saying the public feels “personally robbed” by the theft.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the theft “an attack on a heritage we cherish.”
The far-right National Rally described the robbery as an “humiliation” and a “wound to the French soul.” The party’s figurehead, Marine Le Pen, said on X, “Our museums and historic buildings are not secured to the level of the threats weighing on them. We must react.”
On the left, former French President François Hollande urged authorities to focus on tracking down the thieves rather than inflaming political controversy.
Security concerns at the Louvre have already been raised multiple times over the past few years.
In June, museum workers went on strike to protest staff shortages that compromised security, highlighting vulnerabilities confirmed by a recent survey by France’s Cour des comptes — the country’s highest audit institution.
The report revealed that in the Denon wing, where the Galerie d’Apollon and the Mona Lisa are located, one in three rooms has no surveillance cameras.
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The Louvre, which welcomes more than eight million visitors annually, has also faced long-running infrastructure issues.
Leaks, poor insulation, and overcrowding have prompted calls for renovation, and French President Macron announced plans for a major overhaul earlier this year.
The “Louvre New Renaissance” plan, a decade-long, €700 million project, aims at modernising the museum’s infrastructure, easing crowding, and giving the Mona Lisa a dedicated gallery by 2031.
Paris — The Louvre will remain closed for a second day running on Monday, management told AFP, after thieves stole crown jewels from the museum in Paris a day earlier.
“The museum is not opening today,” a museum official told AFP.
A sign at the museum told visitors the museum remained closed due to “exceptional circumstances” and said all visitors with tickets for the day would be reimbursed.
“The museum is closed for the whole day,” a member of staff told visitors.
Shortly before the announcement, queues of impatient visitors snaked their way across the museum’s pyramid courtyard and under the arches of the main entrance gallery.
French police walk near the glass Pyramid of the Louvre Museum as the museum remains closed the day after a jewel heist by thieves who broke into the landmark by using a crane and smashing an upstairs window, stealing priceless jewelry from an area that houses the French Crown Jewels before escaping on motorbikes, in Paris, France, Oct. 20, 2025.
Benoit Tessier/REUTERS
Carol Fuchs, an elderly tourist from the United States, had been standing in line for more than three-quarters of an hour.
“The audacity, coming through a window. I feel so sorry for whoever was on guard in that room,” she told AFP after the thieves escaped with prize jewels from the museum’s Apollo Gallery on Sunday.
“Will they ever be found? I doubt it. I think it’s long gone,” she said.
Thieves carried out the brazen daytime heist on Sunday morning. They broke into the iconic landmark using crane-type lift to force open a window before smashing through display cases and making off with jewelry of “inestimable value,” according to France’s interior minister and the museum said. They escaped on motorcycles or scooters, officials said.
The robbery hit The Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, a vaulted hall that displays some of the French Crown Jewels underneath a ceiling painted by King Louis XIV’s court artist, the ministry said.
It all happened in broad daylight, with tourists inside the world’s most visited museum. There were no injuries reported.
French Culture Minister Rachida Dati called the robbery the work of “professionals,” describing it on the TF1 TV network as “a four-minute operation carried out without violence.”
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer says many French have reacted with shock at the ease with which such treasured items could be so quickly and seemingly easily plucked from such a vaunted, highly secured institution.
She asked art historian David Chanteranne, who has worked in the Louvre, if the glass in the display cases holding the jewels would have been reinforced somehow?
“Incredibly it wasn’t,” he said, explaining that for the purposes of “historical accuracy,” the Louvre had used the original cases to display the crown jewels, including glass from Napoleon’s time, two centuries ago.
The hunt is on after three daring, scooter-riding thieves stole priceless jewels from the world’s most-visited museum, Paris’ Louvre. It happened just after the museum opened, with visitors already inside. Elizabeth Palmer has more.
Summertime is in full swing which means it’s that time of year again to press play on Lorde’s discography. From Pure Heroine to Solar Power, Lorde seems to never disappoint eager fans. It’s been 7 years since Lorde’s greatest project, Melodrama, became ours. Mega Lorde fan or not, you’ve probably heard a majority of the songs on the album and related to many. It’s about growing up, making mistakes, falling out of love with yourself and others, and finding what makes life exciting.
But, what makes Melodrama so iconic? We have to start with the cover art. It’s literally art that if we saw it walking through the MoMA, we wouldn’t think twice. The hues of blues, browns, and pinks on the cover give the songs so much life and really remind us that making timeless music, like that on Melodrama, is a true form of art.
Here are 11 iconic paintings that pair perfectly with each song on the album.
“’Cause honey I’ll come get my things, but I can’t let go/I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it/Oh, I wish I could get my things and just let go/I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it”
When thinking about lighting in famous paintings, we first thought of Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. The subtle green lights shining in front of the diner add so much dimension to the painting, just like ‘Green Light’ adds character and depth to Melodrama.
“We’re king and queen of the weekend/Ain’t a pill that could touch our rush/(But what will we do when we’re sober?)/Uh, when you dream with a fever/Bet you wish you could touch our rush/(But what will we do when we’re sober?)”
Whether you are a wine girlie or a beer girlie (or neither!) you probably recognize Bacchus by Caravaggio. This painting portrays a young Dioynusus (or Bacchus in the Roman language), the God of Wine, inviting viewers to join him for a glass of red wine. The Greeks had it pretty great, huh? If we could eat grapes from the vine under the Grecian sun all day, we would. Lorde‘s music is the closest we come to a perfect summer vacation!
Find Bacchus at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
“Might get your friend to drive, but he can hardly see/We’ll end up painted on the road, red and chrome/All the broken glass sparkling/I guess we’re partying”
When we listen to ‘Homemade Dynamite’ we envision a room up in flames (metaphorically or literally) either because the music is just that good or because of a different reason. For this reason, we paired the third track on the album with The Burning of the Houses of Parliament by J.M.W Turner and William Turner. Turner’s painting mixes beautiful hues of red and orange that almost make the viewer feel calm amid the chaos. This mirrors how we feel when we listen to Melodrama.
Find The Burning of the Houses of Parliament at The Tate in London, United Kingdom.
“Our thing progresses/I call and you come through/Blow all my friendships/To sit in hell with you/But we’re the greatest/They’ll hang us in the Louvre/Down the back, but who cares—still the Louvre”
This is one of our favorite, if not our number one, track on the album. Blasting this song on full volume makes us want to run down the miles and miles of halls in The Louvre with our besties and Lorde herself. Naturally, we went with the most famous painting housed in The Louvre, The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.
Find The Mona Lisa at The Louvre in Paris, France.
“They say, “You’re a little much for me/You’re a liability/You’re a little much for me”/So they pull back, make other plans/I understand, I’m a liability”
A famous painting that evokes feelings of horror, sadness, and grief is The Scream by Edward Munch. The beauty of art is that each person who views (or listens) to it, can interpret it differently. That’s how we feel about ‘Liability’ and The Scream. Some may find it beautiful, others may feel uncomfortable. How do you interpret these two pieces of art?
Find The Scream at The National Museum in Oslo, Norway.
“Hard feelings/These are what they call hard feelings of love/When the sweet words and fevers/All leave us right here in the cold-old-old/Alone with the hard feelings of love/God, I wish I believed ya/When you told me this was my home-ome-ome”
When deciding which painting to pair with ‘Hard Feelings/Loveless’ we wanted to pick something that evoked heartbreak and pain. Ophelia by John Everett Millias is stunning, yet quite painful to look at. A young woman bathed in flowers, lying in a pool of water, yet we cannot tell if she is miserable or simply full of bliss. Is this what it feels like to be “alone with the hard feelings of love?”
Find Ophelia at The Tate in London, United Kingdom.
“All the glamour and the trauma/And the f***** melodrama, whoa, whoa/All the gun fights and the lime lights/And the holy sick divine nights, whoa”
You know we couldn’t forget about the man himself, Vincent van Gogh. He’s created dozens of iconic paintings that we know very well and love today. But, have you seen The Drinkers by Vincent van Gogh? It features his same artistic flair that makes his work stand out, but also relates to the themes in ‘Sober II (Melodrama).’
Find The Drinkers at The Art Institute of Chicago.
“I am my mother’s child, I’ll love you ’til my breathing stops/I’ll love you ’til you call the cops on me/But in our darkest hours, I stumbled on a secret power/I’ll find a way to be without you, babe”
The lore behind this song cannot go without a quick mention…but, what does the song really mean to us? Writers, and creators alike, are often misunderstood but quickly become the ones to be celebrated later on in life for their accomplishments that were once taken for granted. One of our favorite paintings depicting a writer is that of Emile Zola by Edouard Manet. The scattered feather pens and messy workspace is so relatable!
Find Emile Zola at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.
“So I fall/Into continents and cars/All the stages and the stars/I turn all of it to just a supercut”
Deciding to chase a memory so far away from your mind is a hard decision to make. Whether that’s in love or in familial relationships, sometimes things happen that we wish to forget about altogether. The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dalí reminds us of those themes. We can try our hardest to erase our memory, but it always remains persistent. The clocks draped over various objects remind us that time cannot be warped, no matter how hard we wish it to be.
Find The Persistence of Memory at the Museum of Modern Art.
“And maybe all this is the party/Maybe the tears and the highs we breathe, oh no/And maybe all this is the party/Maybe we just do it violently”
Every time we listen to this song we get quite emotional. We can never stop the tears from falling down, so we just let ourselves feel all the feels that Lorde evokes within us. To match with us, we’ve chosen Crying Girl by Roy Lichtenstein. We love the style of art that Lichtenstein took with this painting and hope that Lorde gains inspiration from it for future cover art!
“All of the things we’re taking/‘Cause we are young and we’re ashamed/Send us to perfect places/All of our heroes fading/Now I can’t stand to be alone/Let’s go to perfect places”
When we think about perfect places and perfect landscapes, we instantly think of Claude Monet. Our favorite Monet is The Artist’s Garden at Giverny. If we could escape to any place, it would be the garden portrayed here. Perfect places are full of brightly colored flowers and the serenity that nature brings. How would you paint your perfect place? Or, how would you write about it in a song?
Find The Artist’s Garden at Giverny at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France.
Image Source: Jonathan Borba | Unsplash
Which song on Melodrama is your favorite? Be sure to let us know by tweeting us at @thehoneypop or visiting us on Facebook and Instagram.
