Why It’s Easier to Rob a Museum Than a Jewelry Store in France

Barely 24 hours had passed since thieves had broken into the Louvre Museum and stolen France’s crown jewels when the mayor of Langres, a walled medieval town in Eastern France, received a troubling phone call. 

The director of the town’s museum was on the line to report that it too had been robbed. Thieves had penetrated the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot overnight and gone straight for a display case housing its collection of historic gold and silver coins.