The Louvre shut down on Sunday after thieves managed to steal priceless jewels in just under four minutes. This follows a string of high-profile museum thefts over recent years.
The thieves allegedly took a lift to the museum and smashed open several glass displays, and made off with the contraband, which included Napoleonic jewels, according to NBC News.
The thieves broke in using a ladder mounted on the back of a truck at around 9:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. ET) as the museum was opening, French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told radio station France Inter.
The culprits stole jewels of “inestimable value” from an area that houses the French crown jewels, before fleeing the scene on motor scooters, he said. He added that three or four thieves were involved.
It was “manifestly a team that had done scouting,” Nuñez said, adding that the “experienced” thieves broke into the Galerie d’Apollon by breaking an exterior window with a disc cutter. The stolen jewels had been kept behind glass inside the gallery, he added.
An image from the scene showed what appeared to be a furniture elevator propped up against a second floor balcony, with police gathered nearby to cordon off the area.
The exhibit displayed hard-stone jewelry that France’s kings had collected. It also includes the French Crown Jewels and other historic diamonds. Nuñez said the authorities evacuated people from the museum “mainly to preserve evidence and clues so that the investigators could work undisturbed.” He also indicated that they expect to apprehend the culprits and retrieve the jewels.
Several people disguised as construction workers broke into the world-famous Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday, cracking open display cases and stealing jewelry that once belonged to the Emperor Napoleon and his wife, officials said.
— ABC News (@ABC) October 19, 2025
Read more: https://t.co/qiCLwnnZJi pic.twitter.com/HcxUUpG5D7
The Associated Press noted that a lack of staffing could have allowed the thieves to pull off the heist.
Daylight robberies during public hours are rare. Pulling one off inside the Louvre — with visitors present — ranks among Europe’s most audacious since Dresden’s Green Vault museum in 2019, and the most serious in France in more than a decade.
It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions say mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight routes and visitor flows meet.
Security around marquee works remains tight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a bespoke, climate-controlled case.
It’s unclear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday’s breach.
The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia and recovered two years later in Florence.
🚨 THE LOUVRE IN PARIS HAS CLOSED FOLLOWING THE THEFT OF JEWELERY THAT BELONGED TO NAPOLEON 😲
— BRITAIN IS BROKEN 🇬🇧 (@BROKENBRITAIN0) October 19, 2025
FRANCE HAS FALLEN 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/l5blgPD4rK
Le Louvre pic.twitter.com/porfDUn1Wf
— Catherine Morisot (@MemphisMessick) October 19, 2025
🚨 THE LOUVRE IN PARIS HAS CLOSED FOLLOWING THE THEFT OF JEWELERY THAT BELONGED TO NAPOLEON 😲
— BRITAIN IS BROKEN 🇬🇧 (@BROKENBRITAIN0) October 19, 2025
FRANCE HAS FALLEN 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/l5blgPD4rK
Le Louvre pic.twitter.com/porfDUn1Wf
— Catherine Morisot (@MemphisMessick) October 19, 2025
Forensics teams are analyzing the crime scene. Unlike Nuñez, some have expressed skepticism that the thieves will be caught and the jewels recovered. Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds, told The Associated Press that it is “unlikely these jewels will ever be seen again” because these types of professional thieves “often break down and re-cut large, recongizable stones to evade detection, effectively erasing their provenance.”
