By: Charlotte Aver
On October 19th in Paris, four “construction workers” entered the Louvre through a window and stole eight pieces of royal jewelry from the Apollo gallery. No one was expecting the heist and guests assumed it was normal to have construction workers around so it went by unnoticed, at first.
One piece of jewelry that was stolen was Napoleon’s wedding gift to his wife, which was a diamond and emerald necklace that consisted of 32 emeralds and 1,138 diamonds. They also stole Empress Eugénie’s tiara which was a diamond and pearl tiara, as well as her bow brooch. Empress Marie-Amélie’s jewelry set was also stolen; it was a sapphire and diamond diadem as well as earrings and a necklace. Another brooch was stolen as well. The crown that belonged to Empress Eugénie was stolen but dropped as the thieves made their escape it was recovered by officials at the Louvre. All of this that was stolen has a value of roughly 102 million dollars.
One of the suspects (male, age 34) was arrested before he was able to get on a flight to Algeria with no return ticket. They arrested him because he fit the description of who broke in based on firsthand accounts and his DNA matched the DNA on the scooter used for the getaway. He has yet to confess whether or not he was a part of the heist.
Another supposed suspect (male, age 39) was arrested at his home. They believe he was a part of the heist because his DNA is on the glass cases from which the jewelry was stolen. He also has a past record of theft and at the time of his arrest was working illegally as a taxi driver. He will continue to be detained, even if he was not a part of the heist due to his past involvement with illegal activities.
The third suspect (male, age 37) was arrested 10 days after the heist because his DNA was in the truck used to make it look like there was construction work and also in the basket lift used to get the thieves in the building. He denies any involvement with the heist.
The final suspect (female, age 38) to be arrested was also allegedly in the truck though her lawyer says she denies any involvement with the heist or the people who allegedly committed the crime.
The possibility of these artifacts ever being recovered is incredibly low due to the possibility that the jewelry has been boiled down to just jewels and alloy.
There is no known footage of the heist, unless a lucky tourist caught it on camera. The absence of video footage is due to the thieves hacking the system, but the Louvre is also partly responsible because the password for all of the security cameras was “Louvre”. So the thieves were clever but also the security system was weak.
This seems to be an incredibly odd freak incident considering that nothing has been stolen from the Louvre before this heist since the nineties. With this in mind there is also the fact that the Louvre is one of the most famous art museums in the world. Hopefully, this never happens again and everything that was stolen is returned in one way or another.
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