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How thieves pulled off a brazen crown jewel heist at the Louvre | About That | CBC News | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: How thieves pulled off a brazen crown jewel heist at the Louvre | About That
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A sophisticated heist involving a team of thieves successfully stole priceless crown jewels from the Louvre Museum in broad daylight, highlighting significant security vulnerabilities and raising concerns for museums worldwide.
What does it take to steal priceless
crown jewels from the most visited
museum in the world? A few thieves, a
ladder, some power tools, getaway bikes,
and about 7 minutes.
>> The French Minister of Culture confirms
the Louve has been robbed.
>> A hunt is underway for thieves after
priceless jewels were stolen from one of
the world's most famous museums.
>> And the craziest part of all, the museum
was full of people at the time.
Broad daylight, a brazen smash and grab
right after the museum opened for
business. How' the Jewel Thieves manage that?
that? [Music]
So, the Lou opens at 9:00 a.m. If you've
never been there, it's this big
sprawling complex, the largest museum in
the world with a total footprint of
something like 10 soccer fields. The
main entrance is right here at the base
of this glass pyramid. There are a few
entrances actually here, here, and here.
But it's over here, the southeastern
corner where four thieves would create
their own entry point. Everything I'm
about to explain is based on information
given by French government ministers,
media reports, and otherwise publicly
available information, especially when
we get into what exactly was stolen and
why it's so valuable. But let's start at
the moment the heist began, about a half
hour after the museum opened to
visitors. This truck with an extendable
ladder and mechanized lift is how
thieves reached the upper floor. These
ladders are pretty common in Paris.
Movers use them all the time to haul
furniture up and down, for example. The
thieves themselves, they're wearing
balaclavas and armed with angle
grinders. Relatively small, powerful
tools that can cut through basically
anything depending on what kind of
cutting disc you use. So with the right
attachments, you can cut through
plastic, fiberglass, even wood. A metal
cutting disc can cut through steel,
iron, bolts, pipes, and with a diamond
disc, you can cut through brick, stone,
and concrete.
>> This was not their first heist. You
know, as a normal person, you don't wake
up in the morning thinking I become a
burglar. Let's start with the Lou.
>> These photos show a relatively clean cut
through glass. You see this vertical
strip left behind. This is right at top
the balcony that the ladder was propped
against. It was around this time a whole
series of alarms would have been
triggered. If not from the exterior
breach, then certainly from the moment
thieves began cutting into the
reinforced glass cases housing the
priceless crown jewels that were stolen.
Le Parisier, which is a major French
daily newspaper, they published this
video online claiming it to show one of
the thieves breaking into a glass case.
Note the bright yellow vest, which may
have helped thieves look less like
burglars and more like maintenance
workers. Now, it's very difficult to
independently verify video like this
because it's so blurry and low res. But
France's prosecutor confirms
investigators did recover a yellow vest
at the crime scene. And if I look at the
list of items that were stolen,
according to France's culture ministry,
and then cross reference those items
with their locations according to the
Louve website, and even pinpoint that
exact room to an overhead layout of the
gallery. Note how room 705, where the
crown jewels are, is at the exact point
of the building where the thieves appear
to have broken in. Then I can go even
one step further and find those specific
items that were stolen in publicly
available video of that exact room.
Here's a diamond encrusted bodice bow
stolen. In that same case, just on the
other side, this tiara was also stolen.
In another case, these pieces from a
sapphire set, a necklace, earrings, and
a tiara, all stolen. At this point, you
might be wondering, where was security
in all of this? Well, according to the
French prosecutor, the guards who did
arrive on the scene were threatened with
the same angle grinders that the thieves
used to break in. It's worth remembering
the guard's number one priority is not
necessarily to protect the crown jewels.
It's to protect people. Think of all the
And all of this would have happened very
quickly. According to the prosecutor,
within 4 minutes, the thieves had broken
in and within seven they were back out
fleeing on motorized bikes after
attempting to set fire to the mechanized
lift that granted them access to begin with.
Now, you may have noticed the French
Culture Ministry lists exactly eight
objects stolen by thieves from the
Louvre. But really, there were nine. And
I'll show you what I mean. The first
three, a sapphire tiara, necklace, and
earrings. They're from a matching set
worn by two queens, Marie Emily and
hundreds of years ago. The necklace made
up of eight sapphires, 631 diamonds.
These emerald pieces are from a
different set belonging to Napoleon's
second wife, Marie Louise, also dating
back to the early 1800s. This necklace
is made up of 32 individual emeralds,
and more than a thousand diamonds. Here
are another two pieces from a matching
set belonging to Empress Eenei in the
mid 1800s. More than 200 pearls, nearly
2,000 diamonds in the tiara, and the
accompanying bodice bow, nearly 2500
diamonds. And then there's this brooch
designed to itself hold a religious
relic. At the top, seven diamonds
surrounding a solitire and 87 more
adorned and suspended below. That's
eight pieces. But the ninth was stolen
and left behind. It's another piece
belonging to Empress Eene. A crown
featuring eight golden eagles covered in
56 emeralds and thousands of diamonds.
It was either lost or abandoned as the
thieves made their escape, later found
on museum property, but appearing to
have been damaged in the process. The
combined value of all these crown
jewels, because of their historical
value, impossible to measure according
to the French government and experts say
maybe impossible to recover. There's a
very small percentage in is recovering
stolen artworks, but when it comes to
jewelry, that percentage is even less.
>> This is true for two reasons. For
starters, no matter what priceless thing
is stolen, they're pretty difficult to
sell, right? Like, you can't exactly
post them on Facebook Marketplace. And
even if you did find an illicit buyer,
how does that buyer show their brand new
acquisition to anyone without putting
themselves at great risk of being
caught? But jewelry in particular,
unlike say a painting, it can be remade
into a brand new valuable thing. Gold
can be melted down, precious stones, cut
and recut.
>> Once they're been cut into smaller
jewels, the deed is done. It's over.
We'll never see these pieces again intact.
intact.
>> So, in an important way, there is very
much a time limit to find and recover
these crown jewels. And this also raises
a much more difficult question about how
you prevent these sort of thefts, not
just at the Lou, but at every museum
with anything of value.
>> You can imagine that other museums in
the world, and there are tens of
thousands of them, smaller than the
Louver, they are watching this news and
they think, well, if the Lou can be
robbed, how can we protect ourselves,
you know? And they are afraid that local
thieves will think, well, you know, they
took it up with the Louver. let's try
our local museum. So, that's the biggest
fear now in in the museum world.
>> It's appalling. It's it's a a slap in
the face of museums everywhere and it's
a wakeup call. If you have jewels or you
have gold in your collections, you need
to be worried.
>> Some experts are already calling this
the heist of the decade. Seven minutes
in and out, the work of seasoned
professionals. But how much of it the
museum and the government should have
been able to prevent? That question will
take much much longer to answer. [Music]
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