The world-renowned Louvre museum reopened its doors this morning, three days after a brazen, daylight heist that saw thieves make off with French royal jewels valued at an estimated €88 million ($102 million).
Visitors began streaming into the iconic institution at 9 a.m. local time, though the Apollo Gallery, the ornate room from which the treasures were stolen on Sunday morning, remains sealed off as a major crime scene.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau confirmed the staggering monetary value of the eight stolen objects yesterday, but stressed that the historical and cultural worth of the Napoleonic-era pieces is "inestimable."
The Four-Minute Heist
The theft, which occurred roughly 30 minutes after the museum's opening on Sunday, was a professional operation that lasted less than eight minutes in total, with the intruders spending under four minutes inside the gallery.
Investigators, numbering around 100, are working on the theory that a highly organized crime group executed the robbery. The method of entry was audacious:
The thieves used a basket lift mounted on a truck to scale the Louvre's façade along the Seine River.They forced open a window to gain entry to the Apollo Gallery, and in sequence smashed display cases to grab eight pieces of priceless jewellery, including a sapphire diadem and necklace linked to 19th-century French queens and an emerald set from Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon's second wife.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez confirmed that the museum's alarm system was triggered when the window was forced, and police arrived on site within minutes. However, the robbers, believed to be a team of three or four, fled on motorbikes before they could be apprehended.
In a key piece of recovered evidence, the thieves dropped one significant item, the diamond-studded imperial crown of Empress Eugénie, near their escape route, which was found damaged.
