Royal jewels Stolen in Louvre Jewellery Heist

What is the Louvre?

The Louvre is a museum in Paris, France that houses many valuable items from history since the 12th century and opened to the public in 1793. From paintings to murals, sculptures and artifacts. A place to preserve art and culture from many different countries. Some famous items held in the Louvre include the Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, a sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite, and many different crown jewels. Basically, the Louvre has items that money can’t buy because they are irreplaceable. Since these items are so highly valued, many people try to steal them.

Past Heists

In 1911 a worker at the Louvre actually managed to steal the Mono Lisa. Since security was always high during open hours of the Louvre, he did it at night when security was much less tight. He camped out in the Louvre until it was time to strike. He cut the Mona Lisa out of its frame and stashed it under his coat. Surprisingly, he got out and wasn’t the main suspect. For two years he waited until the excitement of the Mona Lisa being stolen to die down so that he could sell it. If you didn’t know, the Mona Lisa is the most famous art piece. Since it’s so famous, if anyone tried to sell it they would immediately be turned in, and that’s exactly what happened to Vincenzo Peruggia marking an end to the missing Mona Lisa.

Then in 1976 the sword of King Charles X was stolen. This one was done by three masked men. The Trio used some scaffolding to get into the Louvre’s second story through a window. Then they located the sword and escaped. Unlike the 1911 heist, this one was successful. King Charles X’s sword was never found after 1976 and was probably sold on the black market.

Another piece stolen was some armor, a chest plate and a helmet. This incident doesn’t have an individual tied to it so no one was ever caught. Although, this is different from King Charle’s sword because the missing pieces of armor were recognized by an appraiser and returned to the Louvre in 2021.

The heist of last Week

Unfortunately, the Louvre has had yet another break in with thieves stealing. There were four of them and it took them less time than the average lamphere student takes getting to school, 8 minutes. In just 8 minutes. This was just in the middle of a random day but when everyone was inside admiring art and the Louvre was open. They stole a basket lift, and nobody suspected them of being criminals because they would be too obvious. They broke in through the second story window which is why they needed the basket lift. Once they were inside the alarms went off and people were evacuated so luckily no one was hurt. The thieves stole a tiara, an emerald necklace, a pair of emerald earrings, another tiara, another necklace, a single earring from the sapphire set that belonged to Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense, and a brooch known as the “reliquary brooch.” All of these stolen riches are important to France’s history so it was a massive blow to them. Then once they extracted the jewels, they got away on mopeds. An 8 minute heist, finished on mopeds. That’s like if someone stole the original declaration of independence and got away in a taxi. I personally don’t think that they are going to catch the criminals because they didn’t even have a camera in the room to survey them stealing.

Wrap up

I think this will act as a wake up call for the French government to put more into protecting priceless pieces of art. It’s ridiculous that there aren’t cameras in every room watching over things that are worth millions of dollars. People have cameras all over their houses so there aren’t any good reasons for their lack of cameras. Moving forward, the Louvre should check if those doing construction work are really supposed to be there, and beef up security. I feel like if those criminals were also there to hurt some people then they would’ve easily gotten away with it. I just hope that this won’t start a never ending spiral of heist on historic artifacts because then the culture those artifacts hold will be lost to time.

Sources

Everything We Know about the Louvre Jewellery Heist. 20 Oct. 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg7nrlkg0zxo.

News, A. B. C. “A History of Heists at the Louvre: From the Mona Lisa to Napoleon’s Jewels.” ABC News, https://abcnews.go.com/International/history-heists-louvre-mona-lisa-napoleons-jewels/story?id=126680032. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.

“Police Intensify Hunt for Louvre Thieves as France Reels from Jewel Heist.” NBC News, 21 Oct. 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/police-hunt-louvre-thieves-france-jewelry-heist-latest-updates-rcna238822.

Schneid, Rebecca, and Solcyré Burga. “How Thieves Carried Out Heist of ‘Priceless’ Louvre Jewels.” TIME, 19 Oct. 2025, https://time.com/7326868/louvre-robbery-museum-crown-jewels/.

“Sun, Gold and Diamonds – The Galerie d’Apollon – Temporarily Closed.” Le Louvre, https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/the-palace/sun-gold-and-diamonds. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.