21 Oct 2025

Former FBI investigator on brazen Louvre​ jewel heist

From Nights, 8:10 pm on 21 October 2025

It sounds like a story line from a movie - a heist by a gang of robbers at the Louvre Museum in Paris, stealing some of France's most famous crown jewels, and all in broad daylight.

But that is exactly what happened this week, the thieves brazenly extending a lift to a first-floor window, some dressed as construction workers.

So how could such a daring robbery happen? And what will the likely fate be of the stolen jewels?

Tim Carpenter is the former lead investigator of the FBI's Art Crime Team in the US, now leading his own cultural property consultancy business Argus. he spoke to Emile Donovan from the States.

(FILES) This photograph shows "Collier et boucles d'oreilles de la parure d’émeraudes de l'impératrice Marie-Louise" (necklace and earrings of the set of jewelry of Empress Marie-Louise) displayed at Apollon's Gallery on January 14, 2020 at the Louvre museum in Paris after the reopening of the Gallery following ten months of renovations. Thieves raided Paris's Louvre museum in broad daylight on October 19, 2025, taking just seven minutes to grab some of France's priceless crown jewels, but dropping a gem-encrusted crown as they fled, officials and sources said. "Two high-security display cases were targeted, and eight objects of invaluable cultural heritage were stolen," said the ministry statement. They included the emerald-and-diamond necklace that Napoleon gave his wife Empress Marie Louise, and the crown of Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

Photo: Stephane de Sakutin