Paris has found itself at the center of attention following an audacious crime of unprecedented boldness. In broad daylight, a group of unidentified individuals carried out a heist at the Louvre, one of the most heavily guarded museums in the world. In just seven minutes, nine priceless items vanished from the Apollo Gallery, including a relic linked to the Spanish aristocrat Eugenia de Montijo, the last Empress of France. The heist unfolded like a Hollywood blockbuster, executed with remarkable precision and composure.
On Sunday morning, as the museum halls were already filling with thousands of visitors, a gang of criminals launched their operation. According to French police, this was a well-organized group. They arrived at the museum’s wing facing the Seine on scooters, blocked the street with construction cones, and used a cherry picker disguised as a truck to access a gallery window. At that time, renovation work was underway in this part of the building, and museum staff had already expressed concerns back in June about reductions in the security team.
Armed with circular saws, masked burglars easily broke in, cutting through the window glass. Their target was display case 705, where the French monarchs’ jewels were kept. Moving with surgical precision, they opened two stands and seized nine jewelry masterpieces. By 9:40, just seven minutes after the heist began, the robbers were already leaving the crime scene, vanishing into the morning Paris traffic on their scooters before the first police patrols arrived.
Among the stolen items was the famous crown of Eugenia de Montijo, a native of Granada and the wife of Napoleon III. This magnificent piece, crafted in 1855 by jeweler Alexandre-Gabriel Lemonnier, is adorned with 1,354 diamonds and 56 emeralds. Yet the fate of this relic took a most unexpected turn. Shortly after the robbery, it was found abandoned beneath a Louvre window with only minor damage. It seems that, in their haste, the thieves simply dropped the multi-million-dollar treasure. Historically, the crown had already seen many adventures: after the fall of the empire, it was returned to the exiled empress, who bequeathed it to Princess Maria Clotilde Bonaparte. In 1988, it was sold at auction for $13.5 million, and four years later, it was donated to the Louvre.
The list of lost treasures now being searched for worldwide is impressive. In addition to the crown, other jewels belonging to Eugénie have disappeared: a tiara made of 212 pearls and nearly two thousand diamonds, as well as a large corsage bow created by her personal jeweler, François Kramer. The thieves also took an emerald necklace and earrings—a wedding gift from Napoleon to Marie Louise of Austria—a tiara of Queen Marie-Amélie, and the famous reliquary brooch set with two unique diamonds given to King Louis XIV by Cardinal Mazarin. Ironically, one of the world’s most famous diamonds, the “Regent,” kept in the Louvre, did not interest the thieves.
