Thieves who looted Paris’s Louvre museum took advantage of a 30-second security lapse that helped ensure their passage along with France’s still-changing crown jewels, an inquiry into France’s culture ministry revealed on Wednesday.
Four thieves made off with $102 million worth of jewelry on Oct. 19, exposing security gaps at the world’s most visited museum and revealing its deteriorating condition.
A combination of factors, including delayed footage from security cameras as well as an easily breakable glass window in the Apollo Gallery, where the French crown jewels were taken, delayed the police response by about 30 seconds.
“For those precious 30 seconds, all it would have taken, if he had been able to see the camera sooner, and more window break-in resistance time to observe, was a bit of a quick warning from the control room agents,” said Noel Corbin, chief of inspector general for cultural affairs.
“With a margin of only 30 seconds, the Securitas guards or police officers in a patrol car could have stopped the escape of the thieves.”
The Louvre employs around 2,200 staff, with around 500,000 artworks, of which 38,000 are on display. About 9 million people visited the museum in 2023, corresponding to about 30,000 visitors per day.
“It’s a city of sorts. And not a small town,” Corbin said. “Coordination of interventions and multiplicity of actors is critical.”
He said the camera images were transmitted to a central control room and a zone control room, but the images were not viewed live due to lack of external cameras as well as screens to view all the cameras simultaneously.
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Photo: Police cars park in the courtyard of the Louvre museum, a week after the robbery on Sunday, October 26, 2025, in Paris. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)
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