💎 What Was Stolen From The Louvre Jewellery Heist?

The theft of nine pieces belonging to France's Crown Jewels from the Louvre will forever be one of the country's darkest days when it comes to its cultural history.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
And Amanda Jamn, I think we need this music. Crazy Frog,
the Louver, theft. It's intriguing and as you said the
other day, Brendan, part of you wants to because we've
seen all these movies. Part of you wants to lean
into the theever and go I kind of want them

(00:22):
to get away with it. Yeah, but you know, let's
let they've done an incredible job in plain sight, and
that's how they got away with it. We're learning more
about it. Half an hour after the museum opened, the
robbers used a truck mounted ladder and this isn't unusual
in France. Apparently people live in high rises so they
use you know, these bucket We call them a cherry
picker on ladders to go up and down like a

(00:45):
Is it like a cherry, Yeah, a cherry picker on
a ladder. But also if you saw this outside a museum,
they went in the backside of the museum. The bit
that's on the same on the river. But there's so
many famous monuments that are covered in scaffolding. Half the
time you just assume that works are being done. So
they wore. In some descriptions they said they were wearing

(01:07):
black and others. They said they were wearing high vis
so they looked like workers. There's a picture of one here.
Look he's wearing he's wearing a mask but still wearing
high vis Onlookers just thought, yep, work's going on at
the louver. So it's being described as one of the
most daring robberies in modern history. The jewels are estimated

(01:27):
to be about one hundred and fifty six million Australian dollars.
So they wore their maintenance uniforms, their visibility vests. They
used that. They had a van that parked outside. The
museum was open. They went up to the second floor
with that basket. The lift the thing, so they tried

(01:48):
to look like delivery on a maintenance crew. They went
up to the second floor and they used an angle
grinder to a window to access the French Crown jewels.
The entire thing took about four minutes to get in
use an angle grinder. Security guards solve them, but their protocol,
their training is to make sure people are safe, so
they followed their training and escorted people from there. Well,

(02:08):
hang on, so they saw them break in with the
angle grind, Yeah, well they see, and they went there's
famous paintings around the wall, big long display cabinet in
the middle that had these famous famous jewels and these
Napoleonic jewels, and they use an angle grinder to break
in there. This would have security been aware of what
they were doing or did they think they were doing maintenance. No, no, no,

(02:29):
they knew what was going on, but their protocols would
get humans out of the room. Come, well, that's what's
happening of security. Yes, that's what the problem is. There
were security flaws and investigation went under ras is in trouble.
There was an adequate external surveillance, the weak access control
of exterior walls, possible understaffing. There's some rumors that it
could be an inside job because they knew that this

(02:51):
bit wasn't covered by CCTV, so it was hosted by
Grand Danya. This is a bit that wasn't wasn't seen,
and so there are some you think, how would anyone
know that stuff? What was stolen jewelry from the French
Imperial royal era and they don't have that much, but
during the revolution a lot of it was destroyed and

(03:12):
so France is very proud of these. As I said,
Napoleonic jewelry that Napoleon the First gave to his wife
and various other Napoleons have passed on to their queens
their wives. A crown was dropped nearby and was damaged,
but they sort of lost it on the way. How
casual is that? So they're wondering where they've gone. One

(03:33):
of a Dutch artist story and has said the jewels
are probably still in France because there was some speculation
have they been stolen and will be purchased by just
one of those sort of history pervs who wants to
keep it in their own home. So they'd all stay together.
Now they think probably what's going to happen, which is
the sadness of it, is that these beautiful pieces will
be broken down into individual bits and so they're unidentifiable

(03:56):
because the whole world is on high alert. They'd be
the jewels. The diamonds would be broken into smaller pieces
so and sold on the black market, which means they
won't get as much for them for them, but they
can sell them. They'd still make millions and millions of
dollars straight down to la cash converters. I would love
It's interesting. I'm torn. I'd love to own a Napoleonic diamond.

(04:17):
We'll get down to the LA cash converters take that service
skin that you've been trying to get rid of. Dreadful thievery.
But if one of them appeared on my finger, I'd
say say, nothing come out for Christmas. Okay. Well if
how bad are the French security though they just stand
and watch it happen, Well they had Their protocol was
to protect the people. I mean, that's the hard thing.

(04:39):
Do you choose a crown or a human? Choose the crown.
That's what it is. Well, this is Prince Harry's book
coming up. It would you like to go to c
just made a very good reference. Well, I did cash
converters twice, and you ignore that it twice yesterday. If
you've stolen from me, I've stolen from me. Let's let's
repack this