0:02 What does it take to steal priceless
0:04 crown jewels from the most visited
0:06 museum in the world? A few thieves, a
0:09 ladder, some power tools, getaway bikes,
0:11 and about 7 minutes.
0:12 >> The French Minister of Culture confirms
0:14 the Louve has been robbed.
0:17 >> A hunt is underway for thieves after
0:19 priceless jewels were stolen from one of
0:21 the world's most famous museums.
0:23 >> And the craziest part of all, the museum
0:26 was full of people at the time.
0:29 Broad daylight, a brazen smash and grab
0:31 right after the museum opened for
0:33 business. How' the Jewel Thieves manage that?
0:34 that? [Music]
0:41 So, the Lou opens at 9:00 a.m. If you've
0:43 never been there, it's this big
0:45 sprawling complex, the largest museum in
0:47 the world with a total footprint of
0:49 something like 10 soccer fields. The
0:51 main entrance is right here at the base
0:53 of this glass pyramid. There are a few
0:56 entrances actually here, here, and here.
0:59 But it's over here, the southeastern
1:01 corner where four thieves would create
1:04 their own entry point. Everything I'm
1:06 about to explain is based on information
1:09 given by French government ministers,
1:11 media reports, and otherwise publicly
1:13 available information, especially when
1:16 we get into what exactly was stolen and
1:18 why it's so valuable. But let's start at
1:21 the moment the heist began, about a half
1:23 hour after the museum opened to
1:26 visitors. This truck with an extendable
1:28 ladder and mechanized lift is how
1:30 thieves reached the upper floor. These
1:32 ladders are pretty common in Paris.
1:34 Movers use them all the time to haul
1:36 furniture up and down, for example. The
1:38 thieves themselves, they're wearing
1:41 balaclavas and armed with angle
1:43 grinders. Relatively small, powerful
1:45 tools that can cut through basically
1:47 anything depending on what kind of
1:49 cutting disc you use. So with the right
1:51 attachments, you can cut through
1:54 plastic, fiberglass, even wood. A metal
1:55 cutting disc can cut through steel,
1:58 iron, bolts, pipes, and with a diamond
2:01 disc, you can cut through brick, stone,
2:02 and concrete.
2:04 >> This was not their first heist. You
2:05 know, as a normal person, you don't wake
2:07 up in the morning thinking I become a
2:09 burglar. Let's start with the Lou.
2:12 >> These photos show a relatively clean cut
2:14 through glass. You see this vertical
2:17 strip left behind. This is right at top
2:19 the balcony that the ladder was propped
2:22 against. It was around this time a whole
2:23 series of alarms would have been
2:26 triggered. If not from the exterior
2:28 breach, then certainly from the moment
2:29 thieves began cutting into the
2:32 reinforced glass cases housing the
2:35 priceless crown jewels that were stolen.
2:37 Le Parisier, which is a major French
2:39 daily newspaper, they published this
2:41 video online claiming it to show one of
2:44 the thieves breaking into a glass case.
2:46 Note the bright yellow vest, which may
2:48 have helped thieves look less like
2:51 burglars and more like maintenance
2:53 workers. Now, it's very difficult to
2:55 independently verify video like this
2:57 because it's so blurry and low res. But
2:59 France's prosecutor confirms
3:02 investigators did recover a yellow vest
3:04 at the crime scene. And if I look at the
3:05 list of items that were stolen,
3:08 according to France's culture ministry,
3:10 and then cross reference those items
3:12 with their locations according to the
3:14 Louve website, and even pinpoint that
3:17 exact room to an overhead layout of the
3:20 gallery. Note how room 705, where the
3:23 crown jewels are, is at the exact point
3:24 of the building where the thieves appear
3:26 to have broken in. Then I can go even
3:28 one step further and find those specific
3:30 items that were stolen in publicly
3:33 available video of that exact room.
3:36 Here's a diamond encrusted bodice bow
3:38 stolen. In that same case, just on the
3:40 other side, this tiara was also stolen.
3:42 In another case, these pieces from a
3:44 sapphire set, a necklace, earrings, and
3:47 a tiara, all stolen. At this point, you
3:49 might be wondering, where was security
3:51 in all of this? Well, according to the
3:53 French prosecutor, the guards who did
3:56 arrive on the scene were threatened with
3:58 the same angle grinders that the thieves
4:01 used to break in. It's worth remembering
4:04 the guard's number one priority is not
4:07 necessarily to protect the crown jewels.
4:09 It's to protect people. Think of all the
4:16 And all of this would have happened very
4:18 quickly. According to the prosecutor,
4:20 within 4 minutes, the thieves had broken
4:23 in and within seven they were back out
4:26 fleeing on motorized bikes after
4:28 attempting to set fire to the mechanized
4:30 lift that granted them access to begin with.
4:37 Now, you may have noticed the French
4:39 Culture Ministry lists exactly eight
4:42 objects stolen by thieves from the
4:45 Louvre. But really, there were nine. And
4:47 I'll show you what I mean. The first
4:50 three, a sapphire tiara, necklace, and
4:52 earrings. They're from a matching set
4:56 worn by two queens, Marie Emily and
4:58 hundreds of years ago. The necklace made
5:02 up of eight sapphires, 631 diamonds.
5:04 These emerald pieces are from a
5:06 different set belonging to Napoleon's
5:08 second wife, Marie Louise, also dating
5:11 back to the early 1800s. This necklace
5:14 is made up of 32 individual emeralds,
5:16 and more than a thousand diamonds. Here
5:18 are another two pieces from a matching
5:20 set belonging to Empress Eenei in the
5:24 mid 1800s. More than 200 pearls, nearly
5:26 2,000 diamonds in the tiara, and the
5:30 accompanying bodice bow, nearly 2500
5:32 diamonds. And then there's this brooch
5:35 designed to itself hold a religious
5:38 relic. At the top, seven diamonds
5:41 surrounding a solitire and 87 more
5:43 adorned and suspended below. That's
5:47 eight pieces. But the ninth was stolen
5:49 and left behind. It's another piece
5:51 belonging to Empress Eene. A crown
5:54 featuring eight golden eagles covered in
5:58 56 emeralds and thousands of diamonds.
6:00 It was either lost or abandoned as the
6:03 thieves made their escape, later found
6:05 on museum property, but appearing to
6:08 have been damaged in the process. The
6:11 combined value of all these crown
6:13 jewels, because of their historical
6:15 value, impossible to measure according
6:18 to the French government and experts say
6:21 maybe impossible to recover. There's a
6:24 very small percentage in is recovering
6:26 stolen artworks, but when it comes to
6:28 jewelry, that percentage is even less.
6:30 >> This is true for two reasons. For
6:33 starters, no matter what priceless thing
6:35 is stolen, they're pretty difficult to
6:37 sell, right? Like, you can't exactly
6:39 post them on Facebook Marketplace. And
6:42 even if you did find an illicit buyer,
6:44 how does that buyer show their brand new
6:46 acquisition to anyone without putting
6:48 themselves at great risk of being
6:51 caught? But jewelry in particular,
6:54 unlike say a painting, it can be remade
6:57 into a brand new valuable thing. Gold
7:00 can be melted down, precious stones, cut
7:02 and recut.
7:05 >> Once they're been cut into smaller
7:07 jewels, the deed is done. It's over.
7:08 We'll never see these pieces again intact.
7:09 intact.
7:11 >> So, in an important way, there is very
7:14 much a time limit to find and recover
7:16 these crown jewels. And this also raises
7:19 a much more difficult question about how
7:21 you prevent these sort of thefts, not
7:23 just at the Lou, but at every museum
7:25 with anything of value.
7:28 >> You can imagine that other museums in
7:29 the world, and there are tens of
7:31 thousands of them, smaller than the
7:33 Louver, they are watching this news and
7:36 they think, well, if the Lou can be
7:38 robbed, how can we protect ourselves,
7:40 you know? And they are afraid that local
7:42 thieves will think, well, you know, they
7:44 took it up with the Louver. let's try
7:46 our local museum. So, that's the biggest
7:49 fear now in in the museum world.
7:51 >> It's appalling. It's it's a a slap in
7:54 the face of museums everywhere and it's
7:57 a wakeup call. If you have jewels or you
8:00 have gold in your collections, you need
8:01 to be worried.
8:02 >> Some experts are already calling this
8:05 the heist of the decade. Seven minutes
8:08 in and out, the work of seasoned
8:10 professionals. But how much of it the
8:12 museum and the government should have
8:15 been able to prevent? That question will
8:20 take much much longer to answer. [Music]
