Four masked men spent less than seven minutes snatching eight pieces of royal jewelery from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery on Sunday morning. But experts say the hardest part – offloading the loot – has just begun.
One might imagine there are some masterminds, Bond villain types waiting to receive this stuff, James Ratcliffe, Director of Recovery and General Counsel at the Art Loss Registry, told us art news. The Lost Art Register searches for, registers and helps recover looted or stolen art.
“History tells us that there is no such thing as a mastermind,” Ratcliffe said. “This is a case of risk and reward,” he added.
He said thieves were likely to be opportunists rather than experts, motivated by old security systems and a clear high-value target. “Access to a historic building like the Louvre doesn’t have to be difficult,” Ratcliffe said, noting that museums built for grandeur rather than defense are often difficult to secure.
According to French officials, the gang used monte-meubles, a truck-mounted escalator common in Paris, to reach a second-floor window. After cutting through the glass with a grinder, they smashed two display cabinets and fled toward the Seine on electric scooters, leaving behind a damaged crown made for Queen Eugenie in 1855.
Ratcliffe believes the fate of the jewels depends less on the ingenuity of the criminals than on chemistry. “When something is made of gold and diamonds, there’s a temptation to melt it down,” he said. “The current price of gold makes it a quick, low-risk return.”
Gold prices have soared to record highs this year, surpassing $4,000 per troy ounce, and were trading around $4,300 in mid-October 2025, up more than 50-60% year-to-date. Analysts attribute the rise in gold prices to safe-haven demand amid geopolitical and economic uncertainty, growing expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut, and heavy inflows into gold-backed ETFs and central bank purchases.
Erin Thompson, an arts criminologist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, agrees. “You can walk into any jewelry district in America and sell gold by the pound,” she said. “No one asked questions.”
Thompson points to a 2024 article atlantic It tells the story of a man who steals sports trophies and championship rings from American museums and sells them for scrap. “It’s not glamorous,” she said, “but that’s what usually happens.”
Thompson contrasted the Louvre’s vulnerabilities with those of institutions like the Getty Museum, which she said was “designed with fortress-level security in mind after the art thefts of the 1980s.” In contrast, the Louvre’s age and layout make it beautiful but riddled with vulnerabilities, she said.
Thompson also noted that the robbery was similar to the theft of an Edvard Munch work in 1994. screams In the Netherlands, it was another case in which criminals “used violence and broad daylight to grab headlines”.
And, of course, there are rocks. Reports from France said the thieves made off with eight treasures, including a sapphire and emerald-encrusted necklace, a tiara and a diamond-encrusted relic brooch.
Many experts agree that selling jewelry itself is more challenging than stealing it. Today, such gemstones can be recorded, photographed and traced through microscopic imperfections. These stones may need to be recut or reset before they can enter any market, a process that destroys much of their history, effectively reducing their value.
Reselling them would reduce their value to a fraction of that of a royal heirloom. Even if a thief finds a willing middleman, the risk of detection is high; any large diamond or emerald sold in the coming months is likely to set off alarm bells and nervous sweats.
ArtRisk Group founder Jim Lynne, a retired FBI agent who spent three decades with the FBI’s grand larceny unit, said the Louvre heist was notable for its use of everyday equipment. “The Monte Mables truck is a lot of fun,” he said. “Every day you see people on the streets of Paris moving furniture from upstairs windows. No one gives them a second glance.”
Investigators will likely focus on who rented or used the equipment in the days leading up to the break-in, Lynn added, adding that the ladder truck could have been a vandal for the thieves, especially since it appears the crooks tried to burn the vehicle after the robbery, although unsuccessfully.
Anthony Armor, a former Department of Homeland Security art theft investigator, said the French government faces a delicate decision about whether to offer a public reward for information. “I urge them to offer rewards for information leading to the recovery of stolen items, rather than rewards for the thieves themselves. While such rewards may conjure up images of bags of cash and handovers at train stations, Amor says the reality is far more objective, albeit less exciting.
“This is typically done through an attorney,” he said, “who represents the criminal and is subject to attorney-client privilege.”
Robert Wittman, who runs a security and recovery consulting firm and helped establish the FBI’s rapid-deployment art crimes unit, said the real work begins after the robbery, but added that crooks may not be cut out for the job.
“When I first heard about the burglary, I thought, ‘Wow, this is a professional job. These guys are nice,'” he said. “But the more we learn, the less I think so. They left a lot of forensic evidence, and that’s one of the cardinal rules of criminals – leave no evidence.” Let’s just leave what they did as is, including a crown set with more than 2,400 diamonds and 56 emeralds, and of course the truck-mounted ladder they used to gain access to the building.
Wittman added that the reliance on violence and carelessness showed they were “better at stealing than doing business,” emphasizing that “the real art in art theft is selling, not stealing.”
Sunday’s theft comes after a tumultuous year for the Louvre. In June, staff went on strike over overcrowding and “untenable” working conditions, citing safety risks to both visitors and artworks.
The robbery also echoes a series of thefts across France, including a September break-in at the Natural History Museum where thieves used a blowtorch to steal $700,000 worth of gold nuggets, and a raid on a porcelain museum in Limoges that caused $7 million in damage.
“Organized crime today targets works of art,” French Culture Minister Rachida Dati said Monday after the robbery. “Museums have been targeted.”
It remains to be seen whether Sunday’s robbery will turn out to be a colossal failure or a lasting mystery. The world’s most famous museum, currently closed until Wednesday, represents not the best that France has to offer, but a reminder that even national tragedies can be politicized and a reminder that even the most precious things can disappear in broad daylight.
