{"id":223474,"date":"2025-10-24T21:30:04","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/223474\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T21:30:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T21:30:04","slug":"inspector-clouseau-the-mystery-man-in-an-ap-photo-after-the-louvre-jewel-heist-creates-a-buzz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/223474\/","title":{"rendered":"Inspector Clouseau? The mystery man in an AP photo after the Louvre jewel heist creates a buzz"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Breaking<\/p>\n

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\"Breaking<\/p>\n

It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre<\/a> when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French<\/a> police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates. <\/p>\n

Instinctively, he took the shot.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t a particularly great photo, with someone’s shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself. <\/p>\n

But it did the job \u2014 showing French police sealing off the world’s most-visited museum after the brazen daylight robbery last Sunday. <\/p>\n

Plus, Camus figured, the guy walking past the officers was unusually well dressed, in a trench coat, a jacket and tie and wearing a fedora, adding a touch of Paris<\/a> couture to the scene. <\/p>\n

And so off went the photo to AP’s worldwide audiences. <\/p>\n

From there, fertile imaginations sprung into high gear \u2014 whipping up an online buzz. <\/p>\n

Posts on social media declared the well-dressed man to be a French detective \u2014 if you will, a more dashing version of the famed Inspector Clouseau from \u201cPink Panther\u201d movies \u2014 even though AP’s photo caption had not identified him. <\/p>\n

It simply read: \u201cPolice officers<\/a> block an access to the Louvre museum after a robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.\u201d<\/p>\n

A post on X that now has 5.6 million views says: \u201cActual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre.” <\/p>\n

Another poster \u2014 with 1.2 million followers \u2014 claimed the man \u201cwho looks like he came out of a detective film noir from the 1940s is an actual French police detective who\u2019s investigating the theft.” <\/p>\n

Camus says nothing he saw led him to that conclusion \u2014 the man was just someone who streamed away from the Louvre as authorities evacuated the area, Camus says. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe appeared in front of me, I saw him, I took the photo,\u201d Camus says. \u201cHe passed by and left.\u201d <\/p>\n

If the unidentified man really is one of the more than 100 investigators hunting for the jewel thieves, the authorities are keeping it very hush-hush.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d rather keep the mystery alive ;)\u201d the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said with a wink in an email response to AP questions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223475,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-223474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}