Louvre Heist: Attendant's Terrifying Account of Jewelry Theft

Sat Oct 25 2025 13:43:29 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

A Louvre museum attendant shares her shocking experience of a recent robbery where thieves used an angle grinder to access the gallery and stole historic jewels worth millions.

An attendant at the Louvre recounted her terrifying experience during a recent robbery when thieves used an angle grinder to break into the gallery and steal eight priceless items, including jewels once owned by Napoleon’s wife. The museum's director revealed that years of underfunding and inadequate security might have contributed to the incident, spurring discussions about the need for improvements in museum security protocols.

A gallery attendant on duty at the Louvre when thieves broke in and stole eight of France's crown jewels has said no-one could have been prepared for what unfolded as visitors began to arrive on Sunday morning.

All of a sudden we heard an huge noise, she told radio station France Inter, in the first account given by an attendant at the scene.

The unnamed attendant and two colleagues initially thought the noise to be an angry visitor, but it was not a normal sound: It was a dull, slightly metallic noise. It was, in fact, the moment thieves had used an angle grinder to burst through a reinforced window into the Gallery of Apollo, where the Louvre's collection of historic jewelry is kept.

Within eight minutes, the gang seized treasures, including a necklace that belonged to Napoleon's wife Empress Marie-Louise and a diadem of Napoleon III's wife Empress Eugenie, worth an estimated total of €88m (£77m).

The thieves used a mechanical ladder on the back of a lorry to lift them to a first-floor balcony to gain entry to the gallery. Two tourists ran towards them in panic, she said.

I saw one of the criminals turn around with something that looked to me like a chainsaw, then I yelled at my colleagues to get out, she recalled. She shouted a second time that it was a robbery and that they should run.

One of her colleagues raised the alarm over a walkie-talkie and then we finished evacuating the visits without quite realising really what was going on. They shut all the doors as they left to protect the neighbouring galleries.

On reflection, the attendant said for us it was unbelievable the display cases could have been broken... never for a moment did we think there was such a risk... nobody can be prepared for that.

Another Louvre employee described the moments after the gang escaped, mentioning a very strong smell of petrol due to a ruptured fuel tank of the criminals' lorry. The security guard reported seeing evidence of a blowtorch as well, suggesting that the gang intended to set fire to their escape vehicle.

The museum's director, Laurence des Cars, discussed the damage sustained by the stolen empress's crown, mentioning the possibility of delicate restoration. However, concerns were raised over the museum's security measures following the incident, with acknowledgments of years of underfunding and inadequate surveillance systems.

Calls for enhanced security measures at the Louvre are likely to gain traction post-heist as officials reflect on the vulnerabilities that allowed this unprecedented theft to occur.