Already and this this is the Daily.
This is the Daily OS.
Oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Thursday, the twenty fourth of October. I'm Billy fitz Simons.
I'm Emma Gillespie.
One hundred and fifty seven million Australian dollars. That's the value of the jewelry stolen from the world's most visited museum, the Louver in Paris last Sunday. All up, the heist took less than ten minutes, and it was all done in broad daylight with visitors in the museum, in a story that resembles a Hollywood movie. Today we're breaking down what really happened and how thieves pulled off a heist that's left authorities stunned and raised serious questions about security at the Louver.
Billy, I am so excited that we are talking about this story. As you said, reads like the plot of a Hollywood movie. Think Ocean's Eleven Oceans eight, The Italian Job, Mission Impossible. Every highst movie in the world in history is a screenplay for what has actually happened in real life in Paris this week. It feels almost unbelievable. That it's twenty twenty five and something like this is making headlines. But where do we even begin? Where do you want to begin with this story?
I think what's amazing is that it does sound like it's from a Hollywood movie, but significantly like lower tech, Like it's not. They're not coming out of ceilings. This whole story starts with a ladder, just a normal ladder that you would find.
On a street.
It's unbelievable picture this. It's nine thirty am on Sunday morning in Paris. The doors to the Louver have been open to the public for about thirty minutes at this stage, the public of air to see things like the Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world.
Yeah, this is one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable museums in the entire world. Yes, a Sunday morning at this time of year in Paris, at this museum, it must have been heaving.
Yes, so many tourists.
Anyone who has been to the Louver who's listening will know, any time of day, any time of year, it is absolutely packed.
I was actually just there a month ago, but we don't have time for that. Back to this story, so where were you on the surturday? At ninth Okay, so it's nine point thirty am. A truck pulls up about one hundred and eighty meters away from the main entrance. That truck has some mechanical ladders which it mounts, which the thieves mount to one of the windows on the second floor. Now at this stage, no one has noticed anything out of the ordinary as far as we know.
Okay, so it's business as usual.
Business as usual. Those kinds of ladders that they mounted are quite common in Paris to be able to get bigger items into small apartments in Paris, especially ones that aren't on the first floor. I guess it just it really blended in Okay.
So I'm kind of imagining almost like a bit of a construction site or people just walking past thinking, oh, that must be a maintenance guy.
Yes, And so they use this ladder to get access to the window on the second floor. They climb up the ladder two men. That's two men who are climbing up this ladder. We know at least one of the men were wearing high vizves, which tells us that they were probably trying to look like they were construction workers, okay, and they used power tools to break into the window and gain access to the gallery.
It's interesting comparing this to the Hollywood Hihst films where you're thinking, you know, Balaclava's black turtlenecks. But it's kind of almost I guess ingenius. Obviously we're not endorsing crime, but if I walked past people in high viers, I guess I would not have cause to question. No. So we've used these to scale to the second floor, open the windows with power tools. How long has that taken? And then what happens?
So it's about four minutes it takes for the truck to roll up, the ladder to be mounted, and for them to climb up it. One thing to note is that the French authorities have confirmed that the galley's windows are not reinforced. Now you might be thinking, what does that mean. I've never heard of windows being reinforced. What I have now learned is that reinforced windows just mean that windows have been strengthened with something like metal inserts
to be more durable and more resistant to breaking. Now, these windows were not that they did not have that level of security.
Okay, I'm really surprised to hear that because of the aforementioned notoriety of this museum and all the valuables it contains, that they wouldn't even at least have like a thickened type of glass. Also, I'm really struck by the fact you said that we're at nine point thirty four now, essentially in less than the time it's taken for us to get to this point of the podcast. These guys are in the building.
They are in the building.
Now.
What is interesting is you might presume that there would be security guards inside the building. You are correct in thinking that, But what we have learned is that museum protocol is that if there are intruders, security guards who are unarmed, so they don't have any guns on them or anything like that. Yeah, those security guards have been told that they should evacuate the room and usher visitors to safety. And so that's exactly what happened. Once the
security guards saw the intruders, they left the room. Wow.
Okay, so the process at the loover is intruder spotted. Security guards are ordered to prioritize the safety of the.
Visitors exactly because they don't have anything on them to protect themselves and to protect visitors, and they also don't know if the intruders have weapons on them.
Okay, I wonder if the thieves knew that, if they were kind of clued into the protocol for security guards.
Most likely. I think everything that I've read is that authorities believe that these were very experienced criminal members.
So we have scaled the building, we're in the room. The security guards have cleared out, which also takes care of the tourists and visitors looking at the art and objects in the room. Where do the thieves go next?
So the thieves then go straight to the metal cabinets where the jewels are being held. They use angle grinders. Again, I didn't know what those were.
Do you classic construction site instrument. If you don't know what an angle grinder looks like, you certainly know what it sounds like.
Yes, it's an electrical tool that they basically use to just slice through the cabinet. The thieves went through two cabinets, they grabbed nine jewels, and then they left. Now, the breaking into the cabinets also triggered some alarms. One thing to mention, which is kind of a side note, and we don't really have too many details about this, But we know that the alarms at the louver were recently broken and we think they were fixed, but there could
have been some issues. We don't know how widely the alarms were heard when they did go off, but they are investigating that because there could have been an issue with the alarms.
Okay, so everything you've told me so far does not exactly paint a picture of a maximum security environment. It feels like a couple of things lined up almost perfectly for this robbery.
Yes, and it has led to many questions about the security at literally the world's most famous museum and how this possibly could have happened like this. Another thing to note is that the security guards actually refuse to work the next day after this happened because they were so concerned about their own security and they said to the museum that you have to tell us what you're doing to reinforce our own security during this.
And I guess, with this story capturing international attention in the way that it has, it was highly publicized, you could be concerned if you worked there that that was going to maybe inspire copycat behavior or attempts at threatening the safety of visitors and stuff at Axum Okay, but at this stage in the heist, the thieves have the jewels. That's all happened very quickly. I do want to quickly just mention the jewels that they have taken are the
French Crown jewels. They come from a collection that dates back to the Napoleon era. Priceless, priceless gems. You might have seen some of the images, you know, a beautiful necklace dripping in huge emeralds, exactly the kind of storybook royal family jewelry that you're probably imagining. So they've stashed all of that, and that's happened quickly, and then they get out.
Then they get out. The whole thing takes three minutes and fifty seven seconds, so there's no faffing about. They get the jewels and they leave. Once the thieves leave, they actually tried to light their ladder and their truck on fire, but at this point the security guards had returned and chased them away, and so they didn't have time to do that. They tried, but it didn't work.
What comes next you will have to wait and find out. After a quick word from today's sponsor. Okay, Billy, the thieves have the precious priceless jewels. But their getaway plan has been foiled because by the time they get out of their obviously the alarm has been well and truly raised. The heaters on the security are pursuing them. So how did they actually get away if the plan with the truck filed.
Yes, so at this point they are on the ground now and they have two high powered scooters waiting for them, two other people helping them assisting them. They are on the scooters. These two men with the jewels get on the back of the scooters and they leave.
Like vesper scooters.
Yes, but think more high powers.
Okay, so this is literally the Italian.
Job, Yes, which is a movie I just recently watched.
Ago. They're not helping with your alibi, Bili, Okay, so they get away.
They get away. However, they did drop one of the jewels, which was a crown made of golden emeralds with more than one three hundred diamonds. So in the hurry of getting away, they dropped that and security guards found the crown broken outside the museum. That alone is worth several tens of millions of euros.
I can't believe they dropped it. I can't believe it broke.
Yes, So this whole thing didn't go down perfectly, you know, between not being able to light the ladder on fire to dropping this jewel, it didn't go exactly perfectly. Another thing that is intro is the thieves left behind one diamond worth sixty million US dollars, and authorities have been really confused by that. They don't know why they left
behind this particular diamond. It's a massive, massive diamond. But all the ones they did take, which like you said, they are from the nineteenth century, they are worn by French royalty, they have huge historical value, but they also of course have huge financial value. It just came out yesterday that everything they did take is worth all together and estimated eighty eight million euros, which is about one hundred and fifty seven million Australian dollars.
It's a lot of money. I think it's really interesting they left that one iconic Regent diamond behind. I have heard experts suggesting that the thieves were not interested really in the historical value of these pieces. It would be incredibly hard for them to sell them in their current state because they are so recognized.
Well, that's another thing that is really interesting and why authorities really have a race against time now because they're not expecting that the thieves will now just resell, or not resell, but will now go on to sell any
of these jewels. They believe that they will melt the gold and silver down and then recut them, which will of course get rid of the historical value, but will mean that they can resell the jewelry and you won't be able to recognize that it is these ones that were stolen from the loof.
Yeah. And if you look at the size of some of the stones in this collection, one of them alone could be cut down into tens, if not hundreds of other smaller pieces, like you know, take one big sapphire, turn it into fifty odd rings. And for people in this field, even the highest experts in this kind of collection could not recognize a nineteenth century Napoleonic gem in a different form like they suggest these thieves are interested in doing.
Yeah, authorities do hope that they will be able to find the criminals in time to be able to get them before anything like that happens. French President Manuel Macron has vowed authorities will recover the works, but I think a lot of people and a lot of experts are doubtful that they will ever see these jewels again.
Do you know, belie if investigators have any lead, how are they approaching this task now?
We have no information about that. As far as we know, they don't have any leads. Perhaps they do when they're just not telling the public and the media. Officials have said that there are sixty investigators working on this case. They are questioning witnesses, going through all the footage from surveillance cameras, but they have no idea as far as we know where they fled to. They do believe, as you can imagine, that this was a very experienced team of criminals. Yep, but that's kind of.
All we know. And I heard has been closed ever since this happened. Is that true?
Yeah, So the time of recording, it still has not opened again and we don't know when it will open again.
Wow. This is a fascinating story, so many repercussions. I'm sure the internal security at the LOUVER will be reviewing things with enormous interest, and I'm sure, you know, maybe there'll be more questions to come about funding, etc. How the museum is being managed more broadly and maybe the government will have more to say on that in the days or weeks to come.
I'm sure they will.
Billy, thank you so much for taking us through that fascinating story. I look forward to the Netflix dramatization in the years to come, and thank you for listening to today's episode. We'll be back a little bit later on in the day with your afternoon news headlines, but until then, have a good one.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcultin woman from Gadigal country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations.
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