{"id":261401,"date":"2025-11-14T00:18:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/261401\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T00:18:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T00:18:13","slug":"the-louvre-detective-is-a-15-year-old-boy-a-chronology-of-confusion-amidst-grand-theft-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/261401\/","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Louvre detective\u2019 is a 15-year-old boy: A chronology of confusion amidst grand theft | International"},"content":{"rendered":"

The expression \u201cstraight out of the movies\u201d has been used liberally over the last month, and rightly so, to describe the happenings on October 19 at the Louvre Museum in Paris. That morning, in broad daylight, thieves accessed the institution\u2019s Apollo gallery by using a movable staircase, and with the help of an angle grinder, stole nine jewels<\/a> from the French crown (though they managed to drop an actual crown along the way). <\/p>\n

Among the photos released by news agencies on this historic date, one image caught the attention of millions, due precisely to its cinematic aura. Taken by Thibault Camus of the Associated Press, it showed a figure standing next to police officers who looked as though he had stepped straight out of a film noir, attired in a trench coat, a slightly tilted hat in the style of Humphrey Bogart<\/a>, and what appeared to be a neatly trimmed mustache. That a figure of this kind appeared to be the detective in charge of the investigation into the crime seemed encouraging: no matter how much its historical heritage was plundered, France would never, could never stop being France.<\/p>\n

Pedro El\u00edas Garz\u00f3n Delvaux poses with the image that brought him worldwide recognition.Thibault Camus (AP)<\/p>\n

For weeks, users on social media speculated about the identity of the mysterious \u201cFedora Man,\u201d as he came to be virally known. A gumshoe so out-of-time that his image conjured visions of pursuing Al Capone during Prohibition \u2014 not traversing the streets of Paris in 2025. He cut a figure that seemed too surprising to be real, \u201ctoo perfect,\u201d as ventured by those who questioned whether such an individual really existed. The hypothesis that the character had been generated by AI<\/a> took on such popularity that the photographer had to issue a public denial. Camus, who said he didn\u2019t know the identity of the star of his shot, told The New York Times that the man had interested him visually, having emerged from a historic building attired in old-fashioned garb. On a day, no less, when a similarly old-fashioned heist had been committed. Could it in fact have been the thief? A white-gloved cat burglar, the privileged criminal behind the entire operation? A modern-day Thomas Crown?<\/p>\n

Well, no. In a plot twist deserving of the case\u2019s own unpredictability, the imagined detective who surely had ruined at least two of his marriages through his single-minded addiction to work, lack of sleep and various enemies behind bars, turned out to be a 15-year-old kid who simply knows how to dress. He answers to the name of Pedro El\u00edas Garz\u00f3n Delvaux and on the morning in question, he had been visiting the Louvre with his mother and grandfather. He hadn\u2019t even dressed up for the occasion. Garz\u00f3n Delvaux dresses like this on a daily basis, even to go to high school. The young man, whose family on his father\u2019s side is half Colombian, speaks in halting Spanish during his conversation with EL PA\u00cdS. \u201cI really like history and the World War II era<\/a>,\u201d he explains. It all began with a party at his school. \u201cI dressed up like Jean Moulin, hero of the French resistance, my idol. And when I was dressed like that, I liked the suit and how people looked at me. I also like old movies, the suits James Bond wears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before speaking with the teen, EL PA\u00cdS chatted with his mother, F\u00e9licit\u00e9 Douce de La Salle, 50, whose Spanish was a bit more fluent. That is due to the fact that between 2014 and 2020, the family resided in Seville because of the work of her husband, who is an environmental economist, at the Centro Com\u00fan de Investigaci\u00f3n. \u201cPedro El\u00edas\u2019s elegance also comes a little from his Spanish side,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen he started dressing like that, I told people it was a reference to the Feria de Sevilla<\/a>, which is incredible, because everyone is extremely well-dressed, super-elegant, and no one thinks anything of it. I suppose that served a bit as inspiration for him, though he was very young, he wore children\u2019s clothes at the time.\u201d She looks kindly on the fact that her son dresses how he likes. \u201cI prefer for my son to dress like that than dress like, I don\u2019t know, the Joker,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s great to see your own kid in a three-piece suit!\u201d The photo\u2019s impact has brought much mirth to the family. Although they seem a bit worn out by the presence of journalists at the boy\u2019s school, his mother is relieved by the fact that the motivation for all the attention is \u201csomething nice, a lovely story\u201d, in contrast to the many \u201cugly stories on the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n

They live in Rambouillet, near Paris. On the morning of the heist, it took a while for them to found out what had transpired. \u201cEverything was closed,\u201d remembers Douce de La Salle. \u201cWe walked around, we passed by the pyramid and when we were leaving, that was when Thibault Camus took the photo, we didn\u2019t even see him. Just afterwards, I asked that same police officer who is in the car in the photo looking at Pedro El\u00edas what was happening, and he told us there had been a robbery. We hadn\u2019t realized \u2014 none of us had been looking at our telephones for the last three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pedro El\u00edas Garz\u00f3n Delvaux, during an interview with the Associated Press on November 8 in Paris.Thibault Camus (AP)His first mustache<\/p>\n

One of the reasons that led so many to imagine that Pedro El\u00edas couldn\u2019t have been a kid was his impeccable mustache, which seemed finely and delicately styled. After the revelation that he was only 15 years old, it seemed pertinent to ask whether it had been painted on, part of the costume, or the result of a student\u2019s tireless dedication to the care of facial hair. \u201cYes, of course it\u2019s real,\u201d confirms the boy. His mother interjects, \u201cHe hasn\u2019t shaved it yet, it\u2019s his first mustache.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admits that, before his Instagram account went public, before he gave his first interview to the Associated Press, the news agency who immortalized him and brought him to global fame, Garz\u00f3n Delvaux wanted to play with the expectations of the public for a few days. \u201cIt seemed really cool and I kind of like that there was a little mystery. The theories were very entertaining,\u201d he tells EL PA\u00cdS. His acquaintances had already identified him, either directly or through his mother, who shows up in the photo behind him. In the days that followed the publication of the image, surprised family members in Colombia, Austria and Switzerland got in touch. Also, at school, where his clothes are part of everyday reality \u2014 though he swears he doesn\u2019t get many comments on them \u2014 a lot of curious classmates were approaching him. \u201cThe funny thing is that he has friends who since last week have been wearing ties, because they said, \u2018Why don\u2019t I just wear a tie too?\u2019\u201d says Douce de La Salle. He\u2019s been happy to oblige the requests that he star in a series or film as a junior detective: in the interview with AP, he said he was waiting for an invitation to shoot.<\/p>\n

Garz\u00f3n Delvaux\u2019s grandfather, Douce de La Salle\u2019s father, is the 82-year-old writer Bruno de La Salle, one of the architects of the French revival of the short story. Douce de La Salle has also published stories. This dimension of the boy\u2019s tale \u2014 after all, one may argue that a detective in a hat and coat investigating a jewel theft is \u201cstraight out of the movies,\u201d but surely a boy dressed as a detective in the middle of an assault on the Louvre is \u201cstraight out of storybook\u201d \u2014 is what strikes her as being the most interesting aspect of all the uproar. \u201c[The photo] has captured people\u2019s imagination. They think, who is he? All he\u2019s missing is the cigarette! Is it Sherlock Holmes?\u201d While discussing the performative component of young people behaving like they\u2019re in the 1940s, she quotes the famous monologue from Shakespeare\u2019s As You Like It (1599): \u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another urgent question: how does an adolescent assemble a World War II-nostalgic wardrobe? \u201cHe\u2019s 15, he has no money. He has what he can find at home,\u201d says his mother. The teen vindicates his family\u2019s keen fashion sense. \u201cThere are many things that come from my father and my grandfather. The vest is my father\u2019s, Yves Saint Laurent,\u201d he says. \u201cThe jacket is Hackett, that\u2019s mine. And I also have a Cold War<\/a> watch from Russia in practically every photo. We bought it in India, in Calcutta.\u201d The most touching detail of his outfit is the garment that has caused the most talk, his fedora. \u201cIt\u2019s a hat that belonged to my grandmother on my mother\u2019s side,\u201d says Douce de La Salle. \u201cShe passed away last year. In French, they say this is a clin d\u2019oeil [wink], it was like a tribute that this photo was taken without us realizing it. My mother studied at the Louvre and was a curator, she loved the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire family is throwing themselves into helping Garz\u00f3n Delvaux manage requests and provide him with some protection, with his older sister in charge of emails, his father doing his bit from Pakistan (where he is currently working) and deciding together which media outlets to respond to. And, this Spanish newspaper notes, their six years in Seville are not their only link to the country. \u201cI have many friends, I loved the city and Sevilla F\u00fatbol Club is my favorite team,\u201d says Garz\u00f3n Delvaux excitedly, while his mother laughs in the background. The boy\u2019s love for the Seville team would certainly not have been suspected by many people during the days of speculation over the identity of the \u201cFedora Man\u201d at the Louvre. His Instagram posts do not feature songs by El Arrebato, the author of the Sevilla anthem, but rather, Frank Sinatra<\/a> and The Stranglers. These may be antediluvian references for someone born in 2010, but good taste, as has been demonstrated in this case, is hardly subject to trends. <\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The expression \u201cstraight out of the movies\u201d has been used liberally over the last month, and rightly so,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[107994,6225,6485,6486,1120,96,16087,107993,107992,13772,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-261401","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-al-capone","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-design","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-frank-sinatra","15":"tag-humphrey-bogart","16":"tag-museo-del-louvre","17":"tag-paris","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261401","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=261401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}