Law&Crime Sidebar - 9 Bizarre Details of Louvre Heist That Shocked the World

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

An estimated $102 million worth of jewels were stolen from the Louvre museum in Paris in a brazen heist that took just minutes. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the shocking timeline, the priceless items taken, and the ongoing investigation with former CIA & FBI agent Tracy Walder.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Thank you to Wildgrain for sponsoring. Visit https://wildgrain.com/sidebar and use code “SIDEBAR” at checkout to receive $30 your first box + free croissants for life! HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. This heist at the Louvre has not only stunned all of France. Frankly, it's stunned the entire world, with it now being reported that an estimated $102 million worth of jewels were stolen. So the race is on to not just find the culprits, but to recover the items before they can be destroyed. Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. If I were to tell you that in eight minutes, seven minutes, during busy touring hours at the infamous Louvre in Paris, that using a truck, a ladder, a disc cutter, and scooters, a group

of thieves would be able to pull off a heist that will go down in history, as ABC has reported an estimated $102 million worth of jewels were stolen. Would you even believe? that? That's the reality. That is the reality. It's unbelievable. I was talking about this before. Somebody goes, oh, it's like Mission Impossible. No, it's Mission Impossible. It's Mission Possible. And these thieves, they're at large right now at the time of this recording. In fact, according to the New York Times, here's the timeline, okay? October 19th, 9.30 a.m., the thieves parked their truck underneath the windows of the Apollo Gallery that houses the French crown jewels. It's on the upper floor. By the way, they were apparently disguised as construction workers wearing these

yellow orange vests. They were even able to secure the surrounding area around the truck with construction cones. What do they do next? There's this electric ladder that comes out from the truck and they climb up it, go to the upper floor and onto a balcony. Then you remember that disc cutter, the angle grinder? Well, they use that to carve into the glass. The security alarm goes off. We're going to talk about the police response a little bit later. And then they allegedly proceed to threaten the museum security guards with the cutter, break two display cases, grab a bunch of historic jewelry items, and by 9.38 a.m., they jump on these Yamaha T-Max scooters, these motorbikes outside, and take off. They head towards A6 Highway and the city of

Leone. So the actual theft took about seven minutes. Again, no one has been arrested at the time of this recording. And the New York Times has reported this detail, too. So according to Paris Public prosecutor, Lord Bacall, the thieves got this electric ladder for the truck by falsely claiming it was going to be used for a move. And then allegedly, when someone came to check it out to verify this, they threatened that person. That person apparently filed a complaint in a town miles away from Paris. You know what the name of the town is?

Louvre. Yeah, as the prosecutor, prosecutor called it a, quote, troubling coincidence. It's one way to put it. Now, get this. Listen to what they end up with, okay? They end up with the tiara of Empress Eugenie, so wife of Napoleon III, which contains 212 pearls, almost 2,000 diamonds, and almost 1,000 rose-cut diamonds. They also get Empress Eugenie's decorative bow.

So you're talking almost 2,500 diamonds there, 200 rose-cut diamonds. They also get Empress Eugenie's brooch. There is a series of 19th century sapphire jewelry items that were reportedly worn by Hortez Tens de Bourne, Queen of Holland, Marie Amelais, Queen of the French, Isabel de Orleans, Duchess of Guys, parts of Napoleon's emerald wedding gift set. Apparently Napoleon gave emerald and diamond necklaces to Marie-Louise. This necklace includes 32 emeralds as well as 1,138 diamonds. And these thieves also stole a pair of emerald diamond earrings too. And apparently, Apparently, they also tried to make off with the crown of Empress Eugenie, but left it behind in their dashed to escape.

It was damaged during all of this. Now, Paris public prosecutor, Baccaul, who I mentioned before, announced that the items were estimated to be worth $102 million. This is according to a Louvre curator. It doesn't even take into account the historical loss, as the prosecutor mentioned. But they also weren't insured. It's kind of common, but they weren't insured. And there is a real danger that I want to talk about in a little bit. There is a real danger that these thieves will destroy the items with Baccaw saying, quote,

we can maybe hope that the perpetrators think about it and won't destroy these jewels for no reason. And we'll talk about it because it's really unique, specific items that might be hard to sell. So right now, authorities are part of a massive investigation across the country. Apparently, around 100 officers are involved. You have these four suspects at large. However, there may be accomplices. French president, Emmanuel Macron, promised that the thieves would be caught for, quote, an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history. Justice Minister Gerard

Darminen said that the heist gave a, quote, negative and deplorable image of his country of France, saying, what is certain is that we failed and that the French people all feel like they've been robbed. And look, yes, there have been high-profile thefts before 1994 in less than a minute, two men stole the scream painting in Oslo, Norway's National Museum. 2000. Suzanne's view of Ofereserwas was stolen, never recovered from the Ashmalae Museum in Oxford. 2017, a gold coin worth millions was lifted from the Boda Museum in Berlin. You have the heist here in the United States in Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum back in 1990

when two men dressed up as Boston police officers, they conned their way in, they tied up the security guard, and they walked off with 13 works of art, Rembrandt, Ramir, Daga, Manet. And even at the Louvre, 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen by a museum worker, but it was recovered two years later in Florence, Italy. However, this one, this one just shocks on a whole other level, given I will say how brazen it was and how successful it was. Now, it has been reported that the Louvre has reopened today, first time since the theft. We'll say this, okay?

I am curious, and this is something that I want to get into, whether it is connected in any way to some recent thefts that we've seen, right? Back in September, gold nuggets worth almost $700,000 were pilfered from Paris's Natural History Museum. There was an antique Chinese porcelain worth $11 million that was taken from a museum in LaMages. Last year, seven items were stolen from the Cognac J Museum in Paris. Also last year, a number of 20th century works were stolen by armed criminals at the Hiram Museum in Burgundy. So is this all connected? What is going on? What can we expect? Let's talk about

it. Now, I know this is kind of a different story than we typically cover on sidebar. So for that, let me bring in a different sponsor than we usually have here on sidebar. It's a brand called Wild grain. Now, wild grain is the first bake from frozen subscription box for artisanal bread, seasonal pastries, fresh pastas. Their products bake in 25 minutes or less. That doesn't mean that you're skimping out on quality because unlike the store-bought brands, wild grain, they use a slow fermentation process that's easier on your belly, and it's richer in nutrients and antioxidants. Wild grains boxes, they're also fully customizable with a big selection of seasonal, limited-time products. And if you've got dietary restrictions, it's not a problem.

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They have these apple cider donuts and these pumpkin cinnamon biscuits. So get them before these seasonal items sell out. And let me tell you this, for a limited time right now, Wildcreen is offering our listeners. Our viewers, $30 off of their first box, plus free quissants in every box when you go to wildgrain. dot com slash sidebar to start your subscription. Yep, you heard me right. Frequissants in every box, $30 off of your first box when you go to wildgrain.com slash sidebar. Can't tell which one's better, but that is wildgrain.com slash sidebar or you can use promo code sidebar checkout. Do not miss out on their seasonal products. Okay, so I want to bring in somebody that I really wanted

to talk to about this. I'm always happy to have her on. Tracy Walder, former CIA special operations officer, former FBI special agent, national security contributor at News Nation, and author of the unexpected spy. Tracy, it's so good to see you. My understanding is not only you've been following about this, you've been talking about it. So I definitely wanted your opinion. Let me just start here. I mean, I kind of talked about how unbelievable this is. How on earth did they do this? Now, I meant, you know, practically I mentioned it, right? How they got the ladder, they were dressed up as construction workers made their way up. But like, legitimately, how on earth is something like this carried out? It's shocking. Does it tell you something about the

level of potential expertise here? Well, thank you so much for having you, Jesse. And I've talked about this before on News Nation, on my social media platforms that I feel that because of the way that this area was targeted and I know obviously these are priceless works, but there are other priceless works in the in the Louvre, right? This isn't the only piece of priceless works. And so I believe that this area was obviously targeted, but it was, I think, targeted because of some kind of inside information that they had.

in my opinion, they had to have known that that was the sort of area of the Lou that the area that faces the Sen, that was under construction and it had been under construction for quite some time. So no one would necessarily balk at that basket that you see the basket ladder that you see up there for a bit of a period of time. Also, I think that they knew that one of the rooms actually did not have operable CCTV, at least that's what the French press is reporting. And I think to do something like that in broad daylight, in my opinion, they had to have that information. And if I may, I want to talk about the broad daylight thing really quick. A lot of people say that that's actually really brazen. But if you think about it,

the reality is, is the museum was open at that time. So security, in my opinion, is actually at its weakest point at that time because you have visitors, but then you also have to secure the artifacts versus at nighttime, it's just about securing the artifacts. That's a good point. And also if you pull up as construction crew, you know, there might be an explanation for why someone's there as opposed to showing up at 2 in the morning. You mentioned an inside job. This is something I've thought about as well or inside information. A lot has been said about this was targeted and they knew exactly what they were going after, right? Going only after the jewels. Doesn't appear that they even attempted to go after any oil master works. They didn't go after the Mona Lisa, which was relatively nearby. They didn't. appear to even try to take off with the 140-carat region diamond, right? What is that tell you? Yeah. So what that tells me is that in my opinion, again, none of this has been factually proven. But in my opinion, what I believe is that they were simply there to make the most bang for their buck, if you will. Again, these jewels are priceless. There's not necessarily a dollar amount on them, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars.

The thing is, is their money comes from their provenance, right? Their money comes from the fact that they're Napoleonic jewels. My guess is they don't probably care about that and are willing to take the hit on it and separate all of it and then sell those diamonds, sapphires, rubies kind of on their own. So I think that's more what they were looking for. They weren't looking to steal a large piece of art to necessarily sell that as a whole on the black market. I do want to get into that a little bit about what they made. do with them. Let's put that to the side for a second because I think that's really interesting in

this kind of race to find them, race to find these items before maybe potentially they're melted down. You put that to the side for a second. This level of sophistication, right? So I mentioned before how they obtained the ladder or seemingly obtained the ladder, using, you know, they had the truck, the ladder, the disc cutter, they had the scooters. But there were mistakes, right? They left the empress crown, okay, that I mentioned before. They apparently leave two. angle grinders, walkie-talkie, gloves, gasoline, blanket, blowtorch. They were reporting that they tried to set fire either to the ladder or the truck outside. But you think about forensics.

The Paris public prosecutor, Laura Bacall, who I mentioned before, seems to suggest that they're doing forensic testing on this. Is there an element of this that was sloppy? So the element to me that was sloppy, and I know people have kind of pushed back at me, but seven minutes is a really long time, Jesse. Seven minutes is a really long time to conduct a robbery. I think in my opinion, that's actually the sloppiest part. Now, granted, three of the minutes was spent getting in and getting out, but four minutes. So if you watch that, I think it was a TikTok video, I don't remember, that was recorded by a bystander. They are literally just standing there, four minutes with that angle grinder. That is taking, that is hugely sloppy. When you do something like that, you want to get in, get out, you don't want to just be standing there. And that's what they were. we're doing. So in my opinion, if we just want to like really start at the basic level of this, I believe the fact that they took four minutes to do this is indicative of being sloppy in the

first place because that's a pretty long time, actually. In other words, do you believe that this could be connected to organized crime? Do you think that these are people who might have done something similar in the past? Or is this a one-off? Is this like it does suggest you they didn't properly plan for it enough, that they didn't have that level of professionalism because, and I'll get in a little bit, you know, there's other things that have happened relatively recently. But do you think it's potentially connected to organized crime? There's also been theories that you might have this very wealthy, wealthy individual or group of individuals who have outsourced this to try to get a hold of these jewels. Are we thinking

about it the right way? Tell me. Yeah, I do think it could actually be connected to a bigger network, whether that's organized crime or not. Obviously, I don't know. And the reason I think that is because of the level of, I guess we could say Intel or intelligence that they had to know which ones to get to know which systems would be down. That's not something that a first-time cat burglar necessarily would have. That is someone that has intelligence very much if you think about it like the espionage world on the inside, and that person is probably on a payroll of some sort with these organized crime organizations.

And so that's what tells me it might be connected to something bigger. Do I know that for a certain? no, but it's really that level of intelligence they have that kind of tips me off. So I mentioned before that there are these recent thefts, right? Do you think they're connected to this? Do you think investigators are looking at what happened recently and saying, is this a string? Is this a pattern? Are these the same individuals or same network? 100%. There's no doubt that they're doing that. That would not be that would be poor police work, quite frankly, if they did not do that. And that, I do think it could have all been

connected. At the same time, Paris in and of itself, and again, the French have admitted this, this has been all throughout the French press, are having issues in terms of staffing and in terms of security at a lot of their museums because of strikes, because of unions, all those kinds of things. And one of the things that the Louvre did actually put forth, I think it was towards the end of last year, but it could be incorrect on that date, is a several hundred million euro package of security to enhance security at the Louvre. Now, McCrone actually approved that. That was approved. But obviously, it hadn't been put into place yet. So they know and are fully aware that there are security lapses in some of these museums. And to your point about

the other museums that have experienced this, I think they started out, and this, I don't mean to speak poorly of them, but at sort of lesser known museums to test whether or not. they could do this and do this successfully with the Louvre sort of being the top, right, in terms of security and all of that. And so I'm wondering if some of that earlier last year was almost a testing ground, if you will, for this. And I think there's a race to time, right? Because what are they going to do with these items? Where do they offload them? Do they fence them? Do they put them in new pieces? Do they melt down the gold? I mean, NBC is reporting that there are experts who say that these items are so specific.

that they are so unique. You can't just sell them without raising red flags. You've got to melt them down. And if that's the case, you have to work really, really fast before they do that. Talk to, what do you think? So a couple things that I think, again, and I guess speaking earlier to your theory about, you know, a big collector commissioned this, I don't think that that's the case here, in my opinion. I think if a big collector commissioned this, it wouldn't be these kinds of jewels that would take so,

so much precision, right, to melt down. But I do think in this case, these jewels are hot, right, and they are highly recognizable. These are hot, recognizable jewels. So yes, there is always a black market for everything. I mean, listen, someone may purchase these and then never see the light of day again, but so many people in this world know that they're obviously stolen. Collectors tend to want to show their items, and so they'd have a really hard time showing those to people to see. But I also think that even though it's significantly devaluing the jewels, taking them apart, it is still probably tens of millions of dollars that the jewels in and of themselves are worth. I have read experts, you know, art restoration experts, jewel experts have said that this

can all be done within the span of a week. So I hate to sound like a pessimist, but in my opinion, And I think some of these pieces have already been taken apart. But if they did take it apart, do they need specific machinery? Do they need to go to specific places to do it? And would that set off a red flag? It could. Again, obviously, I'm not a jeweler. That's not a background that I have.

So I don't know how these pieces would be taken apart. Obviously, you just don't start ripping jewels out of it. It doesn't work like that. But yes, that could absolutely tip someone off. But again, going back to, I guess, my theory, that it's part of a larger network, I think they have people on their payroll. who do this, to be completely honest with you. And if this was sold on the black market, like you said, if that really is something,

let's say you have a collector or a group of people who are like, I'm not showing it to anybody and putting in my vault, whatever the case may be, the ability to track private transactions on the black market is how difficult? Oh my gosh. It's incredibly difficult. Listen, this one might be easier, right, because of the level of scrutiny that it has all of the eyes in it. This one could be easy.

but not by much. And so again, and people really are coming from me that I'm saying a collector didn't commission this. I just, my gut tells me that's not the case in this. Are you surprised there are no arrests at the time of this recording? I'm actually not surprised that there are no arrests. And, you know, as you mentioned before, the items were left behind, right? That angle grinder, I think, was left behind, gloves, those kinds of things. Now, they might be able to get DNA from inside of the gloves, right? fingers inside the gloves. But again, just like here in the U.S., that DNA is only going to hit or match if DNA is already in the system. And I believe that they probably used individuals

who may have not had known criminal records just for that case in case something like that happened. They're not going to get DNA off of that angle grinder because the person clearly had gloves when they were wearing them probably not off that gasoline can. So I'm not necessarily surprised to be, to be honest. I know I sound like a pessimist. But what is an investigation like this really look like? I mean, it was reported by ABC News that there is this Israeli security firm known as the CGI group that is now apparently part of this investigation. They actually helped to solve the Dresden Greenwald burglary in Germany where over $130 million worth of jewelry and diamonds were stolen. CNN has reported that

Interpol's cultural heritage crime unit may now take part in this investigation. If there's an international connection. I reported earlier that they have about almost 100 officers in France that are part of this. What does this an investigation like this look like? Yeah, there's no question. I was surprised, actually, to not hear until really today that Interpol was getting involved. Interpol usually gets involved right away, particularly in Europe, because countries are obviously so close to each other, and people are consistently transiting in and out of them. that's 196 different law enforcement officers across Europe, across the world's, essentially the world's largest police force. So there's no question they are working with Interpol.

I think it's actually extremely smart to essentially contract out with that Israeli group as well because this is their background. This is what they have successfully done. And so I commend the French on doing something like that. They could bring in the U.S. although I don't think they need us. I think they have plenty of ability to do that. My guess is in terms of tracking these individuals, this is going to be really similar to cases that we see here and that you work backwards. So what you want to see is what cell phones are pinging off of this area at 930. Now, it's going to be a lot more than at 2.30, but they'll probably start there and sort of work their way back. The part of someone would look and says, wait a minute, they're captured on

video, right? They're captured on surveillance. We know kind of what direction the scooters were I mentioned that they seem to have an idea of how they got the ladder. So maybe they're working their way from that before the theft. How does someone seemingly disappear, though, out of Paris? I mean, you've probably been to Paris, I'm assuming, before. It is, the traffic is pretty insane. And a lot of people are on motorcycles because it's just a much easier way to navigate the city. And so if that burglary wasn't reported,

away, which it wasn't, there was a lag time in terms of security getting there, they already had a head start, in my opinion, and were probably on their way out of the city because I think multiple people on motorcycles is not, in my opinion, going to raise anyone's attention at 9.30 in the morning in Paris. I also was wondering if you have at least four people, right, involved in this maybe accomplices, the more people that are involved, the greater chance someone messes up. And I wonder if that's something that law enforcement is going to be waiting for. Or maybe it already happened. I mean, it may have already happened. But yes, you always want, I don't want to give criminals tips, but yes, you tend to want to keep these things small. You don't want gangs of

dozens of people, right? You know, going into museums because, yes, someone is more likely to mess up. But for people, if you want my honest opinion, I believe they probably practice this. And I think they probably practiced this before. I don't think that this was something that they obviously woke up and decided to do one day. I think that they did practice this, practiced it in other buildings, practiced it in homes, those kinds of things. I think this was rehearsed. Even the part about threatening the security guards at the Louvre with the cutters. I mean, I thought that was an interesting component to it as well. Well, they were unarmed, right? As far as we know, they were unarmed. I don't think.

that was surprising they're going to threaten people with whatever weapons they have closest to themselves but maybe they didn't expect security to get there that quickly and then had to resort to to threatening them with that but let me ask you this you mentioned how this could have happened lapses and then what do you do next the reason i say this is um the lou's museum director and apologies if i'm mispronouncing the name here laurence de sars is supposed to to meet with France's Senate Cultural Committee today to answer questions about how this could happen. And by the way, the Court of Com, the major auditing institution in France, is preparing a report that according to ABC News, which has reviewed a portion of it, will reportedly conclude that there

has been a delay in, quote, deployment of equipment attended to ensure protection of the works within the Louvre from a period of 2019 through 2024, that, quote, operational implementation appears uneven and generally very limited, that some rooms at the Louvre are not completely covered by video surveillance. NBC reporting that a government spokesperson said French President Macron had called for, quote, an acceleration of heightened security measures at the museum. Now, ABC, now I will say this, NBC also reported that Interior Minister Laurent Nunes said the museum's alarms were working, saying, quote, there was a burglary at the Louvre, some of the most precious jewels in France were stolen. So obviously it's a failure. There's nothing else I can say. But

the alarm system worked perfectly. As soon as the window was attacked, it was activated. Police were notified and within three minutes they were on the scene. The whole system worked. It didn't fail. But what happened has happened. So I guess the question is to you, Tracy, A, you know, how did this really happen? But B, what do they do in the future? So, and I read that report to you, Jesse. I want to focus on the three minutes that you said. That is a very long response time. I'm going to be completely honest. That is, in my opinion, a very long response time in a museum of the stature that the Louvre is. The reality is they should be able to get there. Some kind of security should be able to get there in under 60 seconds. Full stop. So what that tells me is they

may have all of this equipment. And to your point, yes, it was shown that not all of them were covered the same. Not all of the areas in the Louvre were covered the same, but they don't have the manpower. They do not have the physical manpower, in my opinion, to respond in an appropriate amount of time. And that is the piece, in my opinion, that's not being addressed. I don't believe that the report addressed that as well. And it's been, it's my understanding that reporting has stated that they really have a shortage, quite frankly, of security all throughout Paris and throughout these museums. And so I think that's where the security shortfall really, really lies, aside from obviously not deploying equipment properly. Tracy, before I let you go, I wanted to ask you

this. Maybe I'm reading a little bit too many Daniel Silva, Gabriel Alon books, but a theft like this, could it be connected to something larger? And I don't just mean like we talked about organized crime. There are theories, could it be connected to drug trafficking? There's also the question, could it be connected to a terrorist network? Is that something that's real? Is there thefts like this that are connected to a broader criminal organization, to a terrorist network? Have you seen anything like that before? Anything from this at this point that would suggest that?

And if not, what would you be on the lookout to see if it's potentially connected to something like that? Well, obviously, my work is doing counterterrorism. I have never seen a connection with robbery of this statute. Yes, I see connections with organized crime and those kinds of things. things, but it's more about logistical trade routes and things like that. Same thing with terrorist connections to drugs. They're not looking to move the same product, if you will. They just want connections to their transportation lines, to logistics, to make things easier for them. So I don't necessarily see that connection. It would be, I guess, more feasible with drugs. But again,

drug traffickers tend to not operate in this brazen, this public of a way. And so I tend to lean more towards organized crime, but that's just my opinion. Tracy Walder, we value your opinion here. Thank you so much for coming on. Always appreciate it. Thank you, Jesse. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us.

And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.