A day after the shocking, Arsene Lupin-style burglary at France’s Louvre Museum, the four unidentified robbers behind the four-minute heist remain elusive.
As a result, it is widely suspected that the thieves, who stole eight items of jewellery from the Napoleon and Empress Josephine jewellery collection, were seasoned professionals.
“The operation suggests the intervention of former members of special units or important figures in organised crime,” Swiss art law expert Andrea Rascher told media outlet Blick.
Rascher also pointed out two possible motives behind the theft—either the thieves wanting money, in which case the stolen jewellery would be melted and sold, or the thieves being sponsored by some kind of art collector looking to add to his collection.
About 60 investigators from the Brigade for the Suppression of Banditry (BRB) of the Paris judicial police as well as the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC) have been tasked with bringing the thieves to justice and recovering the stolen loot.
Still, the Louvre Museum authorities on Monday informed French broadcaster BFMTV that it would be reopening to the public at 9 AM (local time), but with certain sections to remain “unaccessible” to the public.
However, an hour later, they backtracked, announcing that the museum would remain closed.
The museum security debate
The four-minute daylight heist at the largest museum in the world has certainly raised eyebrows in France and the rest of the globe.
Although French president Emmanuel Macron echoed the Louvre’s statement to the public in talking about security reinforcements under the museum’s Nouvelle Renaissance project, insiders say that “a number of planned programmes (under the project) have not been implemented”.
Elise Muller, a room attendant at the Louvre, told French broadcaster RTL that over the past few months, various officers had been flagging a number of problems they observed at the museum.
“None of the alerts issued in the past have been taken seriously enough,” she said, calling out the project.
“We always have to balance the constraints of heritage protection with security constraints … (but) it’s not supposed to happen that a basket reaches the first floor of the Apollon Gallery,” she added.
