Looted Louvre treasures may never be found, experts say

(CNN) — The Louvre museum in Paris announced it would remain closed Monday as investigations continue into Sunday’s extraordinary theft of historic jewelry – and experts say the prospects of recovering the treasures are slim.

In a post on X, the museum said it regretted Monday’s closure, as France begins to digest the implications of the brazen heist in which robbers made off with artifacts from the French crown jewels, dating from the Napoleonic era.

How did the heist happen?

The thieves used a truck-mounted ladder to gain access to the Apollo Gallery, one of the most ornate rooms in the Louvre, through a window.

Armed with tools including an angle grinder and a blowtorch, they targeted two high-security display cases.

The entire operation lasted just seven minutes, authorities said, with the suspects fleeing on motorcyles.

What was stolen?

Among the items taken from the Louvre was a diamond and sapphire jewelry set including a tiara and necklace worn by Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense.

The diadem – a jeweled headpiece worn by royalty – features 24 Ceylon sapphires and 1,083 diamonds that can be detached and worn as brooches, according to the Louvre.

Also stolen was an emerald necklace and earrings set that was a wedding gift from Napoleon to his second wife, Marie-Louise of Austria, in March 1810, containing 32 intricately cut emeralds and 1,138 diamonds.

Eight of the nine items taken remain unaccounted for.

Wider implications for France

French Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin admitted that the Louvre heist exposed security failings at the museum.

“One can wonder about the fact that, for example, the windows hadn’t been secured, about the fact that a basket lift was on a public road,” he said on France Inter radio. “What is certain is that we have failed.”

“The French people all feel like they’ve been robbed,” he added.

Elaine Sciolino, author of “Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum,” emphasized the significance of a robbery at the Louvre, which was originally built as a fortress before becoming a palace for the French royal family.

“This attack really is a dagger into the heart of France and French history,” she said.

Will the jewelry be recovered?

Natalie Goulet, a Centrist member of the French senate, told CNN on Monday that she believes the jewelry has probably already been taken out of the country.

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“I think that the pieces are already abroad,” she said. “I think it’s lost forever.”

Goulet also appeared on BBC Radio about the prospects of recovering the jewelry, replying: “None.”

“The jewelry will be cut up and sold and used as a money-laundering system,” she said. “It’s the easiest way to clean dirty money.”

The robbery was probably linked to organized crime, Goulet said.

“They have absolutely no morals,” she said. “They don’t appreciate the jewelry as a piece of history but the way to clean their dirty money.”

Goulet added that she was “very, very pessimistic” about the prospects of recovering the jewelry.

Sciolino, the author, was similarly downbeat.

“They can be dissembled, they can be cut, they can be sold on the black market,” she told BBC Radio. “It is unlikely that all of them are going to be recuperated in the shape that they are now.”

Christopher Marinello, the founder of Art Recovery International, said that if the thieves are just looking to get cash out as quickly as possible, they might melt down the precious metals or recut the stones with no regard for the piece’s integrity.

“We need to break up these gangs and find another approach, or we’re going to lose things that we are never going to see again,” Marinello told CNN.

Past heists

The most well-known robbery at the Louvre took place in August 1911, when Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was stolen off the museum’s walls by handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

It was 24 hours before anyone even noticed the Mona Lisa was missing, with artworks often removed to be photographed or cleaned.

A bungling police investigation then dragged on for two years before the painting was recovered in December 1913, making it the most famous artwork in the world.

More recently, a work by French painter Camille Corot was stolen from its frame in 1998 and has never been found.

More recent heists at other European museums include the theft of four ancient gold artifacts from a museum in the Netherlands in January.

Robbers used explosives to break into the Drents Museum in Assen, making off with three gold bracelets dating from around 50 BC, as well as the 5th-century BC gold Helmet of Cotofenesti, a historically important artifact on loan from the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that there was a theft from the Louvre in 1998.