Masked thieves steal ‘priceless’ jewels from the Louvre Museum : NPR

PARIS — A brazen theft on the Louvre Museum in Paris Sunday morning has left investigators trying to find 4 males who made off with what officers describe as “priceless” jewels.

The Paris Prosecutor’s workplace informed NPR that two of the suspects broke into the museum’s Galerie d’Apollon, which homes among the museum’s most precious treasures, by a second-floor window shortly after the museum opened. Armed with small chainsaws and field cutters, the lads smashed show circumstances earlier than fleeing on Yamaha TMax scooters towards a close-by freeway.

Two items of stolen jewellery — together with the crown of Empress Eugénie, the spouse of Napoleon III — have been later discovered close to the museum, apparently dropped or deserted because the suspects fled. The gold and diamond encrusted crown was broken, the prosecutor’s workplace mentioned.

A Louvre spokesperson described the objects as being of “inestimable cultural and historic worth.”

French Inside Minister Laurent Nuñez known as the theft “a significant, extremely organized operation” that lasted simply seven minutes. “There is a judicial investigation underway,” Nuñez informed France Inter radio, including the lacking objects have been “of true heritage worth — really priceless.”

Nuñez mentioned the robbers used a basket raise mounted on a truck to achieve the window and later tried to set it on fireplace as they fled. He described the suspects as “a really skilled staff that acted extraordinarily rapidly,” including that every one central police items in Paris have been mobilized to trace them down.

The museum was rapidly evacuated and can stay closed Sunday to protect proof for investigators.

The Galerie d’Apollon, one of many Louvre’s most iconic areas, homes lots of France’s royal jewels and reopened in 2020 following main renovations.

Sunday’s heist is the most recent in a string of latest robberies concentrating on French museums.

In September, thieves made off with round $700,000 value of samples of uncooked gold from the Nationwide Museum of Pure Historical past in Paris.

Additionally in September, robbers stole $11 million value of porcelain works, described as nationwide treasures, from the Adrien Dubouché Nationwide Museum within the French city of Limoges.