The Louvre Art heist
I think we have all heard about the art heist in Paris, from the Louvre Museum.
This is all from BBC
Here we have a set of thieves using one of the those cars with a big ladder on top. Up it goes, they crack a window and within 4 minutes (the alarm going off) they are out and away. On scooters parked below!
They were even in so much of a rush so they dropped one of the jewelry pieces.
It turns out that Louvre did not have CCTV cameras all over. Only like 40% of Louvre is covered via CCTV cameras. They used the money for buying art instead!
It gets better. The password for the CCTV camera system at LOUVRE is – yes – LOUVRE. Sooo hard to crack. The security company password for their system? Well, the company is THALES – and the password is (oh no!) THALES.
However, there are some arrests made, but apparently not the right ones. But, hey, they arrested some more people.
The new set of people arrested are locals. Not highly sophisticated art thieves. The ones we read about. The ones who live in Monaco and only sometimes dip their fingers not the criminal world.
These 4 people arrested (3 men and a woman) were al living around the corner. Says the prosecutor: |”clearly local people” living in SeineSaint-Denis, an impoverished area just north of Paris”.
The Louvre Art heist
Jewels at this end of the scale are unique. they are after all documented and catalogued in many ways. The stones are cut somewhere and there are certificates available.
She said two of the male suspects had been known to the police, as they each had multiple theft convictions.
On Saturday, a 38-year-old woman was charged with complicity in organised theft and criminal conspiracy with a view to committing a crime. Beccuau said the two were in a relationship and had children together, without giving any further details.
Not so glamourous, the world of art theft.
The value of the theft? Some $100 million.
But wht was stolen?
This is what they took.
They also took a crown, but they somehow dropped that.
prices would be between 10 and 30 percent of their value. This means the $102m jewels could sell at between $10.2m and $30.6m on the black market.
Charney said the thieves will not need to go to the black market at all if the jewels are recut significantly and no longer identifiable.
The following is from here So what was stolen? Here is the list:
• A tiara from the set of Queen Marie-Amelie and Queen Hortense
• A necklace from the same duo’s sapphire jewellery set
• A single earring from the sapphire jewellery set
• An emerald necklace from a set belonging to Empress Marie-Louise
• A pair of emerald earrings from the Marie-Louise set
• A brooch known as the “reliquary” brooch
• The tiara of Empress Eugenie
• A large brooch of Empress Eugenie
The robbers also stole a ninth item, the crown of Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III. But it was recovered nearby, thought to have been dropped by the thieves, according to the French Ministry of the Interior.
“The pieces are very ‘hot’ and the price on the black market will be way below the regular market,” Brand said, estimating that the black market
Will the thieves be caught?
“The thieves will get caught for sure. [The likelihood of] recovering the jewels is 50 percent – depends on the time it will take to arrest the thieves,” Brand said.
Police are expected to review surveillance camera footage going back weeks in an attempt to identify suspicious people in and around the premises.
“In thefts like this from museums, the people who actually enter the museum are almost always local career criminals who have been hired for the job. Thanks to surveillance cameras, DNA analysis and other investigative techniques, these thieves are almost always eventually apprehended,” Thompson said.
“It’s proven much more difficult to catch the people who planned the job and hired them, though. I am betting that the people who entered the Louvre will be caught, but it’s unlikely that the pieces they stole will be recovered, since in most similar cases, the pieces are broken apart and the metal melted down within hours.”
