The 2025 Louvre Crown Jewels Heist

It lasted less than ten minutes. On the morning of 19 October 2025, four men dressed as workmen raised a truck-mounted boom lift to a first-floor window of the Louvre, cut their way in, and made straight for the Galerie d'Apollon — the gilded hall that houses the French Crown Jewels. They shattered the display cases and left with eight historic objects valued at roughly €88 million.

Not everything went to plan. During the escape, the Crown of Empress Eugénie tumbled from a bag and struck the pavement outside the museum. Damaged but intact, it was recovered. The remaining jewels vanished with the crew into the Paris suburbs.

The brazenness of the daylight raid — a boom lift on a public street, a target in one of the most-visited museums on earth — stunned France and reopened hard questions about how the world's great institutions protect objects that are, by any ordinary measure, impossible to insure.

In the months since, French investigators have obtained detailed statements from two alleged participants, who say they were recruited only days before the theft by an organizer known only as “Jo”, promised between €15,000 and €25,000, and handed the jewels over immediately after the robbery. In the case's most extraordinary detail, the organizer reportedly complained afterward that the crew could have taken even more from the gallery.

Jewel thefts are especially perilous for recovery: unlike famous paintings, historic jewels can be dismantled, their gemstones sold individually and their precious metals melted down. Many experts hope the sheer historical weight of the French Crown Jewels will persuade whoever holds them to keep them intact. For now the case remains open, the mastermind unidentified, and most of the treasure missing. (See the latest reporting in COA News.)