Louvre Heist Was Apparently Pulled Off by Amateurs With a Ladder and Nerves of Mild Steel, Prosecutor Says

Paris is still recovering from the shock that its latest high profile museum heist was not the work of some cinematic criminal syndicate with code names, custom gadgets, and flawless cheekbones. Instead, according to the Paris prosecutor, the thieves who made off with one hundred and two million dollars worth of historical jewels were closer to the neighborhood troublemakers who normally steal scooters, not crown relics.

Two weeks ago, on a quiet Sunday morning, two men rolled up to the Louvre with a movers' lift, which is essentially a polite way of saying they brought a ladder with ambition. They rode it up to the second floor, smashed a window, cracked open display cases with angle grinders, and zipped off on scooters piloted by two accomplices. In under seven minutes, they had transformed the most visited museum in the world into the setting of a very budget conscious heist film.

Three of the four suspected thieves have now been arrested. The jewels have not. And the authorities are very clear about what this is not. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau explained on franceinfo radio that these suspects are not Ocean's Eleven style masterminds. They are, instead, small time offenders from the tough northern suburbs of Paris, an area more associated with petty theft than cinematic art theft.

This is, Beccuau noted, not everyday delinquency, but it is definitely not the refined, bespoke criminality of the upper tiers of organized crime. The profiles of those detained, including a young mother who is apparently the girlfriend of one of the suspected robbers, look far more like local residents caught up in a reckless scheme than a network of professionals capable of planning a multimillion dollar cultural extraction.

Authorities are still searching for the jewels. The public, meanwhile, is left with unsettling clarity. One of the greatest museums on the planet was breached not by shadowy international operatives, but by four locals, a lift, and two scooters. Paris loves romance, but sometimes reality delivers slapstick instead.

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