She expected that \u201cin the next few days, results will perhaps provide us with leads, particularly if the perpetrators have criminal records\u201d, she told Ouest-France newspaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n The gang of four pulled up outside the Louvre at 9.30am on Sunday, soon after it opened, in a stolen furniture removal truck fitted with a 30-metre (90ft) extending ladder and lift, in which two of them mounted to the first-floor Apollo gallery, which houses France\u2019s remaining crown jewels.<\/p>\n Wearing hi-vis vests to resemble construction workers, they smashed an unsecured window and then used disc cutters to open two display cases in the ornate gallery before descending in the bucket lift and making their escape on the back of motorbikes driven by the other two members of the gang.<\/p>\n However, the thieves failed in their hurried attempt to set fire to the truck, and also left behind a helmet, angle grinders and disc cutters, a hi-vis vest and several other items, Beccuau said, all of which were being analysed in Paris<\/a> and nearby crime labs.<\/p>\n She added that minute analysis of video footage from public and private surveillance cameras, including on motorways, had further helped investigators to follow the gang\u2019s route \u201cin Paris and the surrounding areas\u201d, but declined to give further details.<\/p>\n More than 100 investigators, including officers from France\u2019s BRB organised crime squad and specialists in trafficked artworks and cultural goods, are working on the case. Beccuau said investigators were \u201cexploring all hypotheses\u201d \u2013 including the possibility that the thieves had help from inside the Louvre.<\/p>\n She said the robbery bore \u201call the marks of an organisation: the careful preparation, the audacity of the modus operandi, the type of jewellery targeted, the escape\u201d.<\/p>\n The whole operation lasted less than seven minutes, with the two thieves who entered the gallery spending 3 minutes and 58 seconds inside. While they dropped a diamond- and emerald-studded crown during their getaway, they succeeded in fleeing with a total of eight 19th-century, richly gem-encrusted pieces.<\/p>\n Those included an emerald and diamond necklace that Napoleon I gave his second wife, Marie Louise, and a diadem set with 212 pearls and nearly 2,000 diamonds that had once belonged to the empress Eug\u00e9nie, wife of Napoleon III.<\/p>\n It has emerged that a very similar heist was outlined in one of the 52 volumes<\/a> of a popular children\u2019s book series beginning in the 1960s that stars Fant\u00f4mette, a girl crime-fighter aged about 12 who is often described as France\u2019s first female superhero.<\/p>\n In Appelez Fant\u00f4mette (Call Fant\u00f4mette), a character describes exactly how he would break into the Louvre, steal a diamond, and escape, all in a matter of minutes and without harming anyone.<\/p>\n \u201cListen to me,\u201d the character, speaking in his prison cell, says. \u201cAll you have to do is place a ladder up against the wall and climb up to the first floor; indeed, there is only one floor. Then, you break a window-pane.<\/p>\n \u201cYou advance 10 metres, smash the display case with a hammer and bingo! You have your hands on the objet. Ah, if only I wasn\u2019t locked up in here, I can assure you it would be done in a flash.\u201d<\/p>\n Amid experts\u2019 fears that the jewels taken in Sunday\u2019s dramatic heist were far too recognisable to be sold in their present state and had probably been stolen to be broken down into their constituent gems and melted-down metal, Beccuau stressed time was of the essence.<\/p>\n She said that with worldwide media attention focused on the robbery, there was a small hope that \u201cthe robbers will not really dare move very far [and] we can recover the jewels if we can move fast enough\u201d.<\/p>\n![\"Social](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761329649_865_1920.jpg\")
Social media footage purports to show moment thieves escaped Louvre with jewels worth \u20ac88m \u2013 video<\/p>\n