Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jonathan Sarah j R. Fox correspondent in London, joins us
now to talk about the thieves and the Louver and
the Crown jewels. Jonathan, welcome in, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello. They're a different kind of story to talk to
you about today.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Boy. I'll tell you what Mackenzie, our producer, and I
were talking about this yesterday about how easy it was
for them to pull this off in broad daylight, as
the doors were opening and everybody was starting to come in.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah. Will. The welcome visitors were entering under the famous
glass pyramid that is the Loup's main entrance. These unwelcome
visitors were using a truck with a mechanical ladder on
the back to scale up to a balcony on the
second floor and cut their way through a glass window
with angle grinders, Using the same equipment to break into
(00:49):
cabinets containing the French Crown jewels. They made off with
eight items which are described as priceless, some of which
come from the nineteenth century warm by imperial families of
the likes of Napoleon, tiaras, necklaces, earrings, things that are
going to be very very hard for France to get
(01:09):
used to losing.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I heard people talking about what are they going to
do with these things? Clearly it's going to be tough
to sell. Are they going to melt the metals down
and disassemble to sell the jewels separately and they'll find
a buyer? I mean, are there people out there going,
I help my phone rings, I'd love to get a
hold of these things.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, no doubt there are. I mean, these, as you
would imagine, are going to be very hard to sell.
As is they will be. There are photographs of them
being circulated around the world, and it's not the sort
of thing you necessarily want to be caught with in
your jewelry collection. So what is thought are going to
happen is the jewels will be removed, broken down, and
(01:47):
then sold on the black market, So that that would
mean that these precious treasures would be lost forever. I
think police are probably more optimistic about tracking down and
bringing the thieves to justice, and they are about recovering
the items undamaged.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, it's a shame and the people there and the
citizens and everybody saying this is a smack into our
heritage and our history in our country. Here, the security
was just las I understand there's parts of that building
that don't even have cameras in it. Has this been
an issue with the loover for years.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
What people are saying is they spent so much time
thinking about how to keep the visitors safe, how to
stop the louver being a target for terrorism, for example,
but not enough time thinking about how to keep the
artifacts safe. The windows were not reinforced in any way.
They're very easy to cut through. The security guards when
they saw these thieves with their angle grinders and other
(02:41):
really deadly tools, they took off and just tried to
keep the public safe and away from what was going on.
So they're going to be questions raised about what they
can do to make the love less of a sitting
doug less of an easy target in the future, because this,
for France is a national embarrassment, national humulia, according to
one opposition politician, a symptom of a country that cannot
(03:05):
protect its heritage. The justice means were even saying, what
is certain is that we failed.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, are they thinking maybe there was an inside job,
somebody on the team of this group knew about the
loove and had inside info, or are they thinking they're
just you know, Ocean's eleven crew that studied this for
a year. Do they have any idea who these people are?
I know they chased them for a bit as they
took off on their scooters, but no word on any
(03:32):
leads as far as capturing these guys or girls.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm sure. I'm sure the investigators are going to consider
all possibilities. But if you look at the way this
was carried out, mechanical ladder, the angle grinders to get
through glass windows and the cabinets, and then just rushing
off in less than eight minutes, it doesn't appear as
though a person would need any particular specialist insider knowledge
(03:55):
to carry out the attack. To carry out the robbery,
So yeah, they'll can it or these, but they'll also
carry out, you know, very obvious basic detection work. They
will look at all these security cabinets, cameras from the
streets around the venue, looking to see if anyone of
those casing it out. In weeks past that, we're trying
to figure out where the scooters that the thieves took
(04:17):
off on went to. They think they they reached a
highway heading south out of the city, but it's not
given us any more information about that. So there's a
lot of work to do, and there's a specialist unit
called the b r B, which is known for dealing
with high profile robberies, which is now in charge of
the case.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, I got to tell you, I think they're going
to grab these guys at some point. They'll find them.
But like you said, they're priceless just because of where
these jewels came from and the historical you know, value
of all of that, and you're right, they can't be replaced.
But I guarantee, as much as people are saying these
are priceless, somebody's going to put a price tag on them,
(04:54):
and somebody's going to get them, you know, unless they
recover them, you know all, I think that kind of
slim At this point, your thoughts on these coming back
as they.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Were very unlikely. I was reading comments from our historian
saying that once they're cutting the smaller jewels, the deed
is done and it's over. This is just you know,
you can anonymize these jewels a lot more easily than
you can anonymize the articles themselves, and they will be
worth an awful lot of money on the black market.
In terms of how you safeguard the museum. There are
(05:26):
security experts saying there's you know, there's not that much
you can do. What you have to what you can
do is slow down the thieves, make it harder for
them to get through the glass, for example, give the
police more time to try and catch up with them.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Well, I got to tell you, I'm an interviewing on
a new head of security. If I'm in charge of
this place this morning, that's for sure, all right, Jonathan,
Thank you, buddy, I appreciate you. At seven twenty eight
now the Alabama's Morning News. That's just insane. Whoever they are,
if they catch these guys, I would imagine they're going
to jail for quite some time for stealing I mean
millions and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of some jewels.
(06:01):
Incredible story.
Jonathan Sarah j R. Fox correspondent in London, joins us
now to talk about the thieves and the Louver and
the Crown jewels. Jonathan, welcome in, Thanks for being here.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello. They're a different kind of story to talk to
you about today.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Boy. I'll tell you what Mackenzie, our producer, and I
were talking about this yesterday about how easy it was
for them to pull this off in broad daylight, as
the doors were opening and everybody was starting to come in.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yeah. Will. The welcome visitors were entering under the famous
glass pyramid that is the Loup's main entrance. These unwelcome
visitors were using a truck with a mechanical ladder on
the back to scale up to a balcony on the
second floor and cut their way through a glass window
with angle grinders, Using the same equipment to break into
(00:49):
cabinets containing the French Crown jewels. They made off with
eight items which are described as priceless, some of which
come from the nineteenth century warm by imperial families of
the likes of Napoleon, tiaras, necklaces, earrings, things that are
going to be very very hard for France to get
(01:09):
used to losing.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
I heard people talking about what are they going to
do with these things? Clearly it's going to be tough
to sell. Are they going to melt the metals down
and disassemble to sell the jewels separately and they'll find
a buyer? I mean, are there people out there going,
I help my phone rings, I'd love to get a
hold of these things.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, no doubt there are. I mean, these, as you
would imagine, are going to be very hard to sell.
As is they will be. There are photographs of them
being circulated around the world, and it's not the sort
of thing you necessarily want to be caught with in
your jewelry collection. So what is thought are going to
happen is the jewels will be removed, broken down, and
(01:47):
then sold on the black market, So that that would
mean that these precious treasures would be lost forever. I
think police are probably more optimistic about tracking down and
bringing the thieves to justice, and they are about recovering
the items undamaged.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, it's a shame and the people there and the
citizens and everybody saying this is a smack into our
heritage and our history in our country. Here, the security
was just las I understand there's parts of that building
that don't even have cameras in it. Has this been
an issue with the loover for years.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
What people are saying is they spent so much time
thinking about how to keep the visitors safe, how to
stop the louver being a target for terrorism, for example,
but not enough time thinking about how to keep the
artifacts safe. The windows were not reinforced in any way.
They're very easy to cut through. The security guards when
they saw these thieves with their angle grinders and other
(02:41):
really deadly tools, they took off and just tried to
keep the public safe and away from what was going on.
So they're going to be questions raised about what they
can do to make the love less of a sitting
doug less of an easy target in the future, because this,
for France is a national embarrassment, national humulia, according to
one opposition politician, a symptom of a country that cannot
(03:05):
protect its heritage. The justice means were even saying, what
is certain is that we failed.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Well, are they thinking maybe there was an inside job,
somebody on the team of this group knew about the
loove and had inside info, or are they thinking they're
just you know, Ocean's eleven crew that studied this for
a year. Do they have any idea who these people are?
I know they chased them for a bit as they
took off on their scooters, but no word on any
(03:32):
leads as far as capturing these guys or girls.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I'm sure. I'm sure the investigators are going to consider
all possibilities. But if you look at the way this
was carried out, mechanical ladder, the angle grinders to get
through glass windows and the cabinets, and then just rushing
off in less than eight minutes, it doesn't appear as
though a person would need any particular specialist insider knowledge
(03:55):
to carry out the attack. To carry out the robbery,
So yeah, they'll can it or these, but they'll also
carry out, you know, very obvious basic detection work. They
will look at all these security cabinets, cameras from the
streets around the venue, looking to see if anyone of
those casing it out. In weeks past that, we're trying
to figure out where the scooters that the thieves took
(04:17):
off on went to. They think they they reached a
highway heading south out of the city, but it's not
given us any more information about that. So there's a
lot of work to do, and there's a specialist unit
called the b r B, which is known for dealing
with high profile robberies, which is now in charge of
the case.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
Well, I got to tell you, I think they're going
to grab these guys at some point. They'll find them.
But like you said, they're priceless just because of where
these jewels came from and the historical you know, value
of all of that, and you're right, they can't be replaced.
But I guarantee, as much as people are saying these
are priceless, somebody's going to put a price tag on them,
(04:54):
and somebody's going to get them, you know, unless they
recover them, you know all, I think that kind of
slim At this point, your thoughts on these coming back
as they.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Were very unlikely. I was reading comments from our historian
saying that once they're cutting the smaller jewels, the deed
is done and it's over. This is just you know,
you can anonymize these jewels a lot more easily than
you can anonymize the articles themselves, and they will be
worth an awful lot of money on the black market.
In terms of how you safeguard the museum. There are
(05:26):
security experts saying there's you know, there's not that much
you can do. What you have to what you can
do is slow down the thieves, make it harder for
them to get through the glass, for example, give the
police more time to try and catch up with them.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
Well, I got to tell you, I'm an interviewing on
a new head of security. If I'm in charge of
this place this morning, that's for sure, all right, Jonathan,
Thank you, buddy, I appreciate you. At seven twenty eight
now the Alabama's Morning News. That's just insane. Whoever they are,
if they catch these guys, I would imagine they're going
to jail for quite some time for stealing I mean
millions and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of some jewels.
(06:01):
Incredible story.
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