{"id":56006,"date":"2025-10-19T14:41:46","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T14:41:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/thieves-stage-daring-daylight-heist-at-the-louvre-stealing-napoleon-s-jewels\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T14:42:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T14:42:04","slug":"thieves-stage-daring-daylight-heist-at-the-louvre-stealing-napoleon-s-jewels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/thieves-stage-daring-daylight-heist-at-the-louvre-stealing-napoleon-s-jewels\/","title":{"rendered":"Thieves stage daring daylight heist at the Louvre, stealing Napoleon\u2019s jewels"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to French daily Le Parisien, the criminals gained access through the fa\u00e7ade of the museum facing the Seine River, where construction work is underway. Using a construction ladder and a freight elevator, they reached the Galerie d\u2019Apollon, home to the French Crown Jewels, before breaking through windows and seizing nine pieces from the historic collection.<\/p>\n

French Interior Minister Laurent Nu\u00f1ez described the incident as a \u201cmajor robbery\u201d that lasted just seven minutes. \u201cIt was manifestly a team that had done scouting,\u201d he said, noting that the thieves used small chainsaws and a disc cutter to cut through panes of glass before fleeing on scooters.<\/p>\n

\"French<\/figure>\n

Culture Minister Rachida Dati confirmed the theft in a post on X, saying a \u201crobbery\u201d had occurred at the museum as it opened to the public. \u201cNo injuries have been reported,\u201d she added, assuring that investigations were underway. The Louvre subsequently announced its closure for \u201cexceptional reasons,\u201d and police evacuated visitors from the premises as nearby streets were cordoned off.<\/p>\n

Authorities later recovered one of the stolen jewellery pieces near the museum, but the rest remain missing.<\/p>\n

The targeted Galerie d\u2019Apollon holds some of France\u2019s most valuable treasures, including the Crown Jewels and ornate objects associated with the country\u2019s imperial past. The stolen pieces, part of the Napoleonic collection, are considered \u201cpriceless\u201d by officials due to their historical significance.<\/p>\n

The audacious theft has reignited concerns about museum security across Europe, following a string of high-profile art crimes in recent years. In 2019, thieves broke into Dresden\u2019s Green Vault in Germany, escaping with royal jewels worth hundreds of millions of euros. Two years earlier, burglars at Berlin\u2019s Bode Museum made off with a 100-kilogram gold coin, while in 2010 a lone intruder at Paris\u2019s Museum of Modern Art slipped away with five masterpieces, including a Picasso.<\/p>\n

The Louvre itself is no stranger to daring robberies. The most famous case occurred in 1911 when Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Mona Lisa was stolen by an Italian handyman who hid inside the museum overnight and walked out with the painting under his coat. It was recovered two years later in Florence, an episode that helped turn the portrait into the world\u2019s most recognised artwork.<\/p>\n

Louvre is home to more than 33,000 works ranging from ancient artefacts to European masterpieces and draws up to 30,000 visitors a day.<\/p>\n

\"According<\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Masked thieves on Sunday broke into the Louvre Museum in Paris and made off with a collection of jewels belonging to Napoleon Bonaparte and Empress Jos\u00e9phine in a brazen daylight robbery that stunned France and the global art community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000096402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[192],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-56006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-wycliffe-nyamasege"],"bylines":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"contributors":[{"id":192,"name":"Wycliffe Nyamasege","slug":"wycliffe-nyamasege","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":131}],"featured_image":{"id":2000096402,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/000-79ar7mvlogo.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/000-79ar7mvlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/000-79ar7mvlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/000-79ar7mvlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/000-79ar7mvlogo.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/000-79ar7mvlogo.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000096402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56006"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=56006"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=56006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}