Ian Aikman and
Rachel Hagan
‘An embarrassment’: BBC reports at the scene of Louvre robbery
The Louvre Museum in Paris is still closed on Monday while police investigate a brazen heist which targeted France’s priceless crown jewels.
Thieves wielding power tools broke into the world’s most visited museum in broad daylight, before escaping on scooters with eight extremely valuable items of jewellery.
Here is what we know about the crime which has stunned France.
How did the theft unfold?
Alamy
Empress Eugenie’s tiara at the Louvre, Paris
The gang reportedly arrived at 09: 30 local time, shortly after the museum opened to visitors.
Four suspects arrived with a vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d’Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony close to the River Seine.
Pictures from the scene showed the ladder leading up to a first-floor window.
Two of the thieves got inside by cutting through the window with power tools.
They then threatened the guards, who evacuated the premises, and cut through the glass of two display cases containing jewels.
How Louvre gang carried out France’s most shocking theftA preliminary report has revealed that one in three rooms in the area of the museum raided had no CCTV cameras, according to French media.
French police say the thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside at 09: 38.
Getty Images
The robbers reached a first-floor window and cut through glass panes to gain access to the museum’s gilded Galerie d’Apollon
This is a “very painful” episode for France, said Natalie Goulet, a member of the French Senate’s finance committee.
“We are all disappointed and angry,” she said, and it is “difficult to understand how it happened so easily.”
Goulet told the BBC the gallery’s localised alarm was recently broken, and “we have to wait for the investigation in order to know if the alarm was disactivated”.
France’s culture ministry said the museum’s wider alarms did sound and staff followed protocol by contacting security forces and protecting visitors.
Watch: Two people leave Louvre in lift mounted to vehicle
Getty Images
The thieves approached the building from the River Seine bankside
The gang had tried to set fire to their vehicle outside but were prevented by the intervention of a museum staff-member, the culture ministry added.
Culture Minister Rachida Dati told French news outlet TF1 that footage of the theft showed the masked robbers entering “calmly” and smashing display cases containing the jewels. No one was injured in the incident.
She described
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