Louvre Heist Analysis

After doing around 47 interviews about the recent theft, here is a summary of my thoughts

When there’s an art crime, I get a lot of interview requests. Because I only check email once a week, I’m late for 90% of them (sorry Washington Post, NY Times, even Fox News), which is fine. I don’t actually benefit from giving these interviews, and it’s nice to be at a point in one’s career when you don’t need to acquiesce to this sort of brief publicity opportunities. But I do say yes to those who don’t mind that I’m slow to reply. So you can find some interviews, for instance on The Today Show (Australia) and in Al Jazeera and Slawa, and a recent appearance on X’s “biggest show,” hosted by Mario Nawfal. You can see that interview here.

But exclusive to my Substackers, here is a consolidation of my analysis and thoughts on the theft, which is very different from fine art theft, since it involves jewelry.

When I first heard about the Louvre jewelry heist, it wasn’t through the news—it was from my mom. She sent me a WhatsApp message saying, “You probably already know about this, but…” Within minutes, I had dozens of interview requests piling up. It’s the sort of thing that happens every time there’s an art or heritage theft. But this one stood out immediately, because it wasn’t really an art theft at all. It was jewelry.

That distinction matters. The theft of a painting or sculpture is a different beast entirely. Fine art has enormous non-intrinsic value—it’s worth what culture says it’s worth. Strip it down and it’s just canvas, pigment, or wood. You can’t sell a stolen Picasso or a Vermeer without the entire art world knowing exactly what it is. Jewelry, on the other hand, has intrinsic value. Even if you melt it down or recut the stones, it’s still worth a fortune. In this case, the estimated market value of the stolen pieces—crowns, necklaces, tiaras associated with Napoleon and his circle—was said to be around $100 million. But if the thieves broke the jewelry up into loose gems and gold, they could still sell it for about 10 percent of that, which is a very respectable payday for a single morning’s work.

The heist itself was daring and surprisingly low-tech. Around 9:30 a.m., two men in construction gear arrived in a stolen cherry picker. Because there was ongoing renovation in that part of the museum, no one thought twice when they extended the ladder and used a cutting disc to slice through a window. They cut through the protective glass, threatened the guards with their tools, and escaped within minutes. Two accomplices waited nearby on scooters. It was all over in roughly seven minutes.

So were these professionals? In a sense, yes—but not professional art thieves, because such a thing barely exists outside of fiction. Most so-called art thieves are ordinary criminals who think art is glamorous because they’ve seen Ocean’s Eleven or Red Notice. If they knew how difficult it actually is to profit from stolen art, they’d probably steal something else. In this case, they did: jewelry is much easier to sell. My best guess is that the perpetrators are part of an organized crime group, though probably new to stealing from museums.

When it comes to what happens next, timing tells us a lot. With paintings, if a ransom demand comes immediately, it means ransom was the plan. If it comes weeks later, they probably tried—and failed—to find a buyer. But with jewelry, there’s usually no waiting around. I’d bet that within a few hours of the theft, the pieces were broken apart, the stones recut, and the materials quietly moved out of France. That’s the rational move. A single morning’s work, ten million dollars’ worth of gems, and no hope of recovery.

The fact that they managed to escape at all is interesting, given how heavily monitored Paris is. But in a busy city, scooters can vanish into traffic, and switching vehicles is simple. Movies often get this part right—drive into a parking garage, up a ramp, into a van, and you’re gone. Surveillance systems still rely on clear facial recognition, and if you’re wearing masks and high-visibility vests, you can disappear in plain sight. That’s the real genius of this heist: doing something so obviously that nobody questions it until it’s too late. During museum hours, you can blend in with confidence. At night, it would have been impossible.

Was it an inside job? Possibly, but not necessarily. Anyone can conduct what security professionals call “hostile surveillance”—scoping out the site beforehand. If security cameras and alarms are visible, thieves know what to avoid. Ironically, the more visible the security, the easier it can be to plan around it.

One thing that stood out to me was the decision to remain unarmed. That’s partly practical—if you’re caught with weapons, your prison sentence is far longer—but it also nods to an old tradition among certain thieves who considered themselves “gentlemen” criminals. Adam Worth, the 19th-century figure who inspired Sherlock Holmes’s Professor Moriarty, forbade his men from carrying weapons. He thought it made them reckless. There’s a strange echo of that ethos here: no guns, just tools.

So what now? The best hope for recovering the jewels would have been if the authorities offered a substantial reward for their return—more than the stones would be worth once melted down. It’s been done before. In 2008, gold jewelry was stolen from the Museum of Anthropology in British Columbia. The police offered a reward higher than the melt value, and the thieves held onto the pieces long enough for the police to catch them and recover everything intact. But such offers can also backfire; thieves might simply return the objects, collect the reward, and then steal them again.

Interpol will be coordinating the investigation, but their role is mostly administrative—they collect and share data between national police forces. Real progress tends to come from informants within the criminal underworld. Most cases are solved not by brilliant detective work, but by criminals gossiping and other criminals selling them out for cash or leniency. If these thieves stay quiet and patient, I doubt they’ll be caught.

I hate to say it, but all things considered, they did pretty well. Not that I condone it, of course—but in terms of planning, timing, and execution, it was remarkably efficient. The real takeaway is for museums: they can go years without a single attempted theft, and that kind of complacency dulls vigilance. The best institutions run surprise “red team” drills, where their own staff stage mock break-ins to test the system. Perhaps this heist will be the wake-up call that keeps the next one from succeeding.

The latest news (as of Oct 27, 2025) is that two suspects have been arrested while attempting to leave the country for Algeria and Mali respectively. This means that more info may come to light that requires rethinking the above analysis, but as of now I’ll stick to it as most probable. Tomorrow I’m on TRT News in a roundtable discussion so we’ll see what new comes up. Happy Monday to all!