In the broad daylight of October 19, 2025, masked thieves wearing construction vests snuck into the Apollo Gallery of The Louvre Museum. The thieves entered the gallery through a mechanical lift to access a window, brought along power tools to cut through the display cases, and escaped on electrical scooters.
This heist amazed the media with how easily the robbers escaped without a trace for weeks. With all of the modern and high level security that goes into protecting such precious objects, the series of events that occurred should have been impossible to miss. However, the robbers slipped right through the French Securities’ fingers until only recently.
There were said to be four thieves in total who committed the crime. As of recently,only two have been officially caught. Although the French public is relieved to see some progress in coming closer to solving this mystery, they are also faced with a humiliating reality at how badly the museum security failed to do their jobs. Natalie Goulet, a member of the French Senate’s finance committee, stated that the episode was “very painful” for the whole country, adding, “We are all disappointed and angry” and that it was “difficult to understand how it happened so easily” (BBC). After the initial robbery, around 60 investigators were working on the case, and the Louvre was evacuated in “total panic”.
So far, four suspects have been arrested, but there is no confirmation or full accusations yet. The suspects include a 34 year old man who was arrested at the Paris Airport. He was arrested six days after the heist and faces the preliminary charges for the robbery. There was also a 37 year old man with a record of similar theft, a 38 year old woman accused of being an accomplice, and a 39 year-old man believed to have entered the Apollo Gallery the same time as the heist (ABC News). There is limited evidence surrounding the suspects, but the French public certainly hopes that more will be revealed soon.
Although this crime took place across the Atlantic Ocean, news of it spread quickly to all other parts of the world, including here at Ramapo. Senior Bella Levison who is familiar with the heist stated, “I remember first hearing about it on Tik Tok. There were lots of trends that came out of the robbery, mainly because of how ridiculous it was that the robbers got away so easily.”
English Teacher Mr. Hedges heard about it through a news report. When asked if he was surprised by the robbers getting away, he responded, “At first, it was kind of shocking that they were able to do all of this in broad daylight while the museum was open. It seems almost impossible to do something while there are so many people around and so many authorities on duty. Then when I saw how it was done, it actually made more sense. There is always so much construction and so many maintenance vehicles around major cities like Paris that nobody would look twice at a cherry picker and people dressed in work vests. At night, this would look suspicious. On a busy day, it blends in.” When asked how this episode reflects on the museum security of Paris, he stated, “I think it definitely shows a serious hole in security. That building is humongous, so it’s impossible to have 100% security at every turn, but there should certainly have been more safeguards to not allow a vehicle like that to be able to get to a point of that proximity.”
Although this heist was shocking, the French public hopes to become closer each day to uncovering the robbers who were truly behind this crime.
