The Late and Latest Larceners of the Louvre

It was a normal autumn morning on October 19, 2025 in France.

The people of Paris didn’t know that it was about to be one of the most not-normal days of the decade, not just for them, but for the whole world.

To the pedestrians of Paris, there seemed to be a few ordinary construction workers,  with high visibility vests and orange cones around the truck they rode in, doing renovations on the facade of the famous Louvre museum. Little did they know that what they were beholding was a group of about-to-be world famous robbers, armed with dangerous power tools and a dangerous plan, and their role as everyday workers was the real facade.

Breaking in at around 9:30 am, thirty minutes after the Louvre opened, they stole several priceless Crown Jewels from the collection in the Apollo Gallery, including brooches, earrings, jewels belonging to sapphire and emerald sets, and diamonds. 

Oh, and would you believe that stealing all this, along with cutting through the window to get in and escaping into the busy streets with their loot, took -not an hour, not two, but approximately seven. Minutes. 

No, we’re not talking about a movie here. These thieves must have been the cleverest and the most nimble of their kind.

Well, except for the fact that they dropped the most valuable piece of the collection, the imperial crown of empress Eugènie, on the way out.

Little clumsy?

And would you believe, again, if I told you this was not the first time the famous Louvre museum, holder of some of the most valuable art and artifacts, the largest art museum in the world, has been robbed. It has in fact been robbed more than five times.

Let’s zoom back to 1911 to explore the most famous, and the very first, theft of this Parisian museum.

Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee of the Louvre, was an Italian handyman. One day, he returned to the museum, this time with rather more nefarious purposes than mopping the floor. The painting he chose to steal was oddly not even the most popular in its gallery, forget the whole museum. Peruggia chose it merely for its small size, easy to sneak out. He hid in a closet in the museum overnight and smuggled the painting out in his clothes the next morning after the museum opened.

The painting was recovered two years later, when Peruggia attempted to resell it to its original home, Italy. He believed that since the painting was taken by Napoleon along with countless other Italian artifacts to France, this painting deserved to be returned to its rightful owners. 

The painting he stole was the Mona Lisa.

You might be wondering why I said that the stolen painting was not that popular.

Well, you’ll probably be interested to know that a main reason for the now world renowned painting‘s fame is its theft. 

The news had a field day with the story, hyping the theft up, with headlines “Louvre robbed for the first time!” Plastered on television, on newspapers, on people’s minds. As the enigmatic lady’s face filled the papers, the whole world pined to see her for real. When the painting returned to the Louvre, it redeemed itself as not only the most popular painting in its gallery, not only in the whole museum, but the whole world.

Will the Crown Jewels and their thief be recovered as the Mona Lisa and hers was? 

All we can do in the meantime is hold our breath and cross our fingers that our investigators are as fast as the thieves: but seven minutes are long gone.