On the time of the brazen heist of $102 million in jewels from the Louvre final month, the password to the world-famous museum’s video surveillance system was merely “Louvre,” in accordance with a museum worker with information of the system.
The revelation comes because the museum’s safety measures have come underneath scrutiny within the wake of the high-profile theft.
Throughout testimony earlier than a French Senate committee final month, Laurence des Automobiles, the president and director of the Louvre, mentioned the one digital camera put in exterior the Apollo Gallery was going through west and didn’t cowl the window the place the thieves used energy instruments to interrupt in and exit.
A soldier patrols in courtyard of the Louvre museum, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photograph/Emma Da Silva)
Emma Da Silva/AP
As well as, Des Automobiles mentioned the entire museum’s alarms labored, as did its video cameras, however famous a “weak spot” within the museum’s perimeter safety “on account of underinvestment.”
French investigators mentioned the complete theft from begin to getaway took seven minutes and that the thieves used a truck-mounted mechanical cherry picker to exit the focused Apollo Gallery.
The Louvre director instructed French lawmakers, “The safety system, as put in within the Apollo Gallery, labored completely. The query that arises is methods to adapt this technique to a brand new kind of assault and modus operandi that we couldn’t have foreseen.”
Regardless of touting the safety system throughout the Louvre as working correctly, des Automobiles added, “Right this moment we’re witnessing a horrible failure on the Louvre. The safety of the Louvre is certainly one of my high priorities throughout my time period of workplace, and I repeat that I used to be appalled by the museum’s safety state of affairs after I arrived in 2021.”
$102 million in jewels stolen from Louvre
Louvre Museum
Because the investigation into the October heist continues, authorities have still not recovered the missing jewels from the museum, regardless that 4 suspects have been charged in reference to the theft.
In a Franceinfo radio interview Sunday, Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau mentioned that authorities are nonetheless trying to find the lacking jewels.
“All avenues are being explored,” Beccuau mentioned.
She added the 4 arrests have “led to new searches and the seizure of recent objects which might be being examined,” and “at the very least one individual” concerned within the theft stays at giant.
Beccuau mentioned the suspects in custody seem to not be related to organized crime, because the first two suspects arrested had been a taxi driver, 39, and a supply man and rubbish collector, 34, from the northern Parisian suburbs.
Their DNA was recovered on the scene of the crime, they usually “partially admitted their involvement” within the theft, in accordance with Beccuau. The unemployed rubbish collector was arrested at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, as he was about to board a one-way flight to Algeria, in accordance with officers.
The opposite two charged suspects are a person, 37, and his home companion, 38, additionally from the northern areas of Paris.
The Apollo Gallery within the Louvre that housed the stolen jewels has remained closed for the reason that theft, in accordance with the museum’s website.
ABC Information’ Aicha El Hammar Castano and Invoice Hutchinson contributed to this report.
