How thieves pulled off the Louvre jewel heist in minutes
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
On Sunday, the Louvre museum in Paris was burgled in broad daylight. Thieves in disguises entered through the windows and used a glass cutter to access thousands of precious diamonds and gems. The thieves are still at large.
Across France, authorities and citizens alike are both outraged and captivated by the robbery. The incident has ignited questions about security and accountability at the museum.
Host Colby Itkowitz speaks with the Post’s senior art and architecture critic, Philip Kennicott, about how the thieves pulled off their brazen heist. We also hear from a former senior investigator and founder of the FBI National Art Crime Team about the reality of museum heists.
Today’s show was produced by Emma Talkoff with help from Rennie Svirnovskiy, Laura Benshoff and Zoe Cummings. It was edited by Ariel Plotnick and mixed by Sam Bair. Thanks to Jonathan Fischer and Steven Johnson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On Sunday morning, the first visitors entered the Louvre in Paris. |
| 0:05.9 | They were taking in the museum's thousands of masterpieces like the Mona Lisa. |
| 0:10.5 | In one gallery, home to exquisite crown jewels, some people looked like they were there maybe to do some maintenance. |
| 0:17.9 | They're wearing these yellow vests. |
| 0:19.9 | Perhaps they're delivery people. perhaps they're construction workers. |
| 0:22.6 | They're sort of anonymous in plain sight. |
| 0:25.6 | It's the sort of thing that you wouldn't notice until suddenly everything is going really wrong. |
| 0:30.6 | These were not museum employees. |
| 0:34.6 | They were thieves pulling off a heist. Within minutes, they grabbed |
| 0:39.9 | diamond and gem-encrusted treasures and fled. Two days later, the thieves are still at |
| 0:46.7 | large. So I asked Philip Kennecott, the post-senior art and architecture critic, about the question |
| 0:52.9 | on all of our minds. How do they do it? |
| 0:56.5 | It didn't take lasers and precise measurements and grappling hooks and all of these |
| 1:01.6 | kind of Hollywood techniques to get into this gallery. It just took a little bit of force and a little |
| 1:06.3 | bit of planning. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. |
| 1:13.4 | I'm Kolby Ekowitz. It's Tuesday, October 21st. |
| 1:17.5 | Today, how thieves managed to seal thousands of diamonds and gems from the most visited |
| 1:23.0 | museum in the world, in broad daylight. |
| 1:26.9 | And we'll hear from a former FBI agent who says that pulling off in Ocean's Eleven style heist is, in fact, easier than you might think. |
| 1:35.7 | I mean, look, if you have the will and the desire and be fairly fearless, in other words, not worry about being caught. |
| 1:45.5 | You can go anywhere to steal just about anything. |
| 1:56.6 | Phil, thanks so much for joining me. |
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