The two Louvre thieves gingerly make their way down a cherry picker during their slow-motion getaway in the incredible new footage from the £76 million heist at the central Paris museum
Incredible new footage shows the moment the Louvre thieves made a bizarre slow-motion getaway with the French crown jewels.
In the clip, the two men – one wearing a high-vis jacket and another in a motorbike jacket – gently make their way down a cherry picker they had set up outside the museum unchallenged moments before their audacious smash-and-grab heist of nine priceless artefacts.
The pair appear to have enjoyed an astonishing amount of time to carry out their escape, and fled the scene on motorbikes after reaching the ground. Five days on, police are yet to arrest anyone in connection with the £76 million robbery, which has been described as a “national humiliation” by opposition politicians in France.
Only one of the items – Empress Eugenie’s crown – was retrieved, after apparently being dropped on the pavement by thieves.
All the other stolen artefacts remain missing, amid fears the cache of national treasures may now have been broken down for sale on the black market.
The missing items include a tiara worn by Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, sapphire diadem, a necklace and single earring from a matching set linked to 19th-century French queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, an emerald necklace and earrings from Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife Empress Marie-Louise, a reliquary brooch, and her large corsage-bow brooch.
The Louvre reopened to the public yesterday amid a heightened security presence.
The director of the museum, Laurence des Cars, meanwhile spoke at a hearing of the senate’s culture committee, where she acknowledged a “terrible failure” and admitted there was “highly insufficient” CCTV coverage of the area surrounding the museum.
It comes after a British art authenticator said he is convinced he has been asked to look at the Louvre’s stolen jewels. Curtis Dowling was called by two separate people on October 19 – the same day the daring museum heist took place in Paris. He said one person was Russian and another from the Middle East – both offering wads of cash to look at “some important French jewellery.”
Mr Dowling says he is convinced that it was from people who had bought, or wanted to buy, the items taken from the Paris landmark. He said on LinkedIn: “STOLEN !!!! And then the phone rings. 1 hour ago, today, 19th October 2025!
“UPDATE! 2nd PHONE CALL JUST IN ASKING THE SAME THING FROM RUSSIA. Can I authenticate some important French jewellery? Urgently. What’s my usual fee I am asked? I tell the man on the telephone. We will pay you in cash 500 times that amount, he says. “I smell trouble.”
Mr Dowling went on to say the jewellery may have already changed hands three times, adding: “Let’s cut to the chase. “Someone has stolen something important from the Louvre and they are trying to fence it (sell it fast) and this man who sounds like he is from the Middle East doesn’t want to buy cheap paste copies from the thieves so he gets my number as the number one authenticator in the world, assuming I can be bought (I can’t) because when you buy stolen goods you can’t exactly call the Police if you get ripped off. “I politely decline to get involved. You see I don’t do this to get rich and secondly I’d rather keep from being buried in a shallow grave in Saudi if I get involved. “Look. When priceless items are stolen they are sold three times in the first 24 hours because most of the time there are perfect fakes waiting in the wings to rip off the dodgiest collectors out there. It’s a funny old world isn’t it. “I hung up. Best I think.” Mr Dowling, 58, who lives in Surrey, is the star of the Treasure Detectives show on CNBC, which shows art collectors searching for expensive paintings.
