Guwahati: Thieves in balaclavas barged into Paris' Louvre museum on Sunday.
They used a crane to break an upstairs window, “then stealing priceless objects from an area that houses the French crown jewels before escaping on motorbikes, officials were quoted by news agency Reuters.
The robbery points towards awkward questions about security at the museum, “where officials had already sounded the alarm about lack of investment at a world-famous site, home to artworks such as the Mona Lisa, that welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024.”
"The theft committed at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our History," President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X. "We will recover the works, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice."
The thieves entered at about 9.30 a.m. (0730 GMT) when the museum opened. They entered the Galerie d'Apollon building, Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said on BFM TV.
The robbery lasted between six and seven minutes and was carried out by four people who were unarmed, but who threatened the guards with angle grinders, she said.
Nine objects were zeroed in on by the thieves and eight were actually stolen. The thieves lost the ninth one, the crown of Napoleon III's wife, Empress Eugenie, during their escape, Beccuau said.
"It's worth several tens of millions of euros - just this crown. And it's not, in my opinion, the most important item," Drouot auction house President Alexandre Giquello told Reuters.
Minister Laurent Nunez said the probe had been entrusted to a specialized police unit that has a high success rate in cracking high-profile robberies.
