France's crown jewels were stolen in just four minutes
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau has confirmed the involvement of about a hundred investigators in the hunt for France’s crown jewels, which were stolen from the Louvre in minutes last Sunday October 19.
The Associated Press reported that Beccuau’s office is spearheading the investigation. The office said the heist was orchestrated by two men in yellow jackets, who broke into the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery at 9:34am. They completed the theft by 9:38am and left the crime scene on motorbikes.
According to interior minister Laurent Nunez, there were a total of four perpetrators – two of which were in a truck with a cherry picker used to facilitate the ascent to the gallery. The ladder reached the floor above street level, as revealed in photos.
The thieves nabbed eight pieces of jewelry: two crowns containing over 200 pearls and almost 2,000 diamonds; a starry sapphire-and-diamond headpiece; a necklace and single earring; a necklace of emeralds and over 1,000 diamonds and the matching pair of earrings; a reliquary brooch; and a large bodice bow.
One of the crowns had been an 1853 wedding gift by Emperor Napoleon III to the Empress Eugenie; the headpiece was sported by Queen Marie-Amelie. The emerald necklace was an 1810 wedding gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to Austria’s Marie-Louise, his second wife.
A ninth piece, another crown decorated with gold eagles, was recovered after the thieves either dropped or left it. The piece sustained damage.
“These are family souvenirs that have been taken from the French. Empress Eugenie’s crown — stolen, then dropped and found broken in the gutter, has become the symbol of the decline of a nation that used to be so admired,” said Maxime Michelet, a conservative lawmaker, in a statement to parliament yesterday that was published by AP News. “It is shameful for our country, incapable of guaranteeing the security of the world’s largest museum.”
Art Recovery International lawyer Christopher A. Marinello suggested that the thieves sought to steal whatever they could.
“They chose this room because it was close to a window. They chose these jewels because they figured that they could break them apart, take out the settings, take out the diamonds and the sapphires and the emeralds,” Marinello said in a statement published by AP News.
Marinello theorized that the gems would be taken to a “dodgy dealer” who would be willing to recut them.
Dutch art sleuth Arthur Brand said the thieves would struggle to find buyers for the whole pieces.
“Nobody will touch these objects. They are too famous. It’s too hot. If you get caught you will end up in prison. You cannot sell them, you cannot leave them to your children,” Brand said in a statement published by AP News.
Beccuau said the estimated value of the lost crown jewels comes to US$102 million (€88 million). This does not cover the historical value of the pieces.
