Louvre Royal Jewels Heist: How Thieves Pulled Off an Eight-Minute Museum Hit
Zone 7 with Sheryl McCollum
iHeartPodcasts and CrimeOnline
4.7 • 792 Ratings
🗓️ 28 January 2026
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In broad daylight on October 19, 2025, thieves dressed as construction workers targeted the Louvre and vanished with $100 million in royal jewels in about eight minutes.
In this episode of "Zone 7," Sheryl McCollum is joined by former jewel thief Bryan Sobolewski to lay out exactly how a heist like this gets pulled off, what mistakes crews make when the clock is ticking, and why modern forensics can turn a “perfect” job into an evidence trail.
Sobolewski then shares his own history, the losses, and long-term consequences, and why he now speaks publicly to warn others away from choosing a life of crime.
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Guest Bio:
Bryan Sobolewski is a former jewel thief who speaks publicly about robbery methods, prevention, and the real-world consequences of criminal conviction. He has appeared on Fox's reality series "The Snake," and on "America's Most Wanted."
Sobolewski is also a comedian and personal trainer, and previously hosted the "Family Jewels" podcast and authored the book "Family Jewels."
About the Host
Sheryl “Mac” McCollum is an active crime scene investigator for the Metro Atlanta Police Department and the director of the Cold Case Investigative Research Institute, which partners with colleges and universities nationwide.
With more than four decades of experience, she has worked on thousands of cold cases using her investigative system, The Last 24/361, which integrates evidence, media, and advanced forensic testing. Her work on high-profile cases, including The Boston Strangler, Natalie Holloway, Tupac Shakur.
Her work on the Moore’s Ford Bridge lynching led to her Emmy Award for "CSI: Atlanta" and induction into the National Law Enforcement Hall of Fame in 2023.
Social Links:
• Email: coldcase2004@gmail.com
• X: @149zone7
• Facebook: @sheryl.mccollum
• Instagram: @officialzone7podcast
Preorder Sheryl’s upcoming book, "Swans Don’t Swim in a Sewer: Lessons in Life, Justice, and Joy from a Forensic Scientist," releasing May 2026 from Simon and Schuster.
Highlights:
• (0:00) Sheryl McCollum recounts the Louvre entry point, the freight truck with extended ladder, missing jewels, and why “construction work” is the perfect disguise in a crowded tourist environment
• (2:45) Sheryl brings in former jewel thief Bryan Sobolewski to talk about the heist
• (4:45) The ladder truck problem: sourcing it, driving it, and the traceability thieves cannot erase
• (7:15) The moped getaway and why Paris geography favors two wheels
• (8:15) Uninsured jewels and what security should have anticipated
• (10:00) How fast cases move when the thieves leave obvious evidence behind
• (12:15) Flight attempts, the hired-crew theory, and how the organizer can remain invisible
• (16:15) DNA, fingerprints, and trace evidence
• (19:15) The gear left behind and why serial numbers and rentals make a heist crew traceable
• (24:00) Bryan’s New England backdrop, mob proximity, and “street rules”
• (27:45) Bryan recounts his father and brother dying on the same night and the questions he is left to live with
• (30:15) Why display cases are harder to break than people think, and how reinforced glass slows thieves down
• (40:30) Bryan reflects on the long-term cost of crime, what accountability looks like after prison,
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is an IHeart podcast. |
| 0:02.6 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:12.1 | Y'all, I just got back from Paris, and I had the opportunity to go to the Louvre to stand where the ladder was where the thieves climbed up to that second-story |
| 0:25.0 | balcony, entered, grabbed the jewels, and left. It was October 19, 2025. The Louvre opened |
| 0:34.6 | at 9. By 9.30, a freight truck pulls up with an extended ladder. |
| 0:41.3 | Two men, dress like construction workers, go to the second story. |
| 0:46.1 | Little balcony there. |
| 0:48.0 | Take an angle grinder, bust in through the window glass there, make their way in by 934, four minutes. |
| 0:59.2 | Alarms are triggered because they have busted through the glass with that same grinder. |
| 1:04.9 | They grabbed eight pieces of the royal jewels. |
| 1:08.4 | We're talking to Polion now and his wife. |
| 1:11.6 | Eight pieces. |
| 1:13.6 | One piece was dropped, several blocks away from the Louv, and that one was recovered. |
| 1:18.6 | It was damaged, but was recovered. |
| 1:21.6 | Interpol on the 20th of October starts blasting all the data they can on this case. |
| 1:29.1 | What jewels were taken, what the pieces looked like. |
| 1:32.7 | By the 27th, police have made an arrest of two people. |
| 1:37.5 | By November, we have four people under arrest, two men and two women. |
| 1:42.9 | That's the four-person team. The two men went out. The two |
| 1:47.0 | women waited outside on motorbikes. That's how they made their way out. Of the eight items, |
| 1:54.0 | and one being recovered, so the seven remaining, y'all, you're talking about $100 million dollars worth of jewels a hundred million dollars |
| 2:04.2 | and they did all of this in about eight minutes from start to finish one of the things they did |
... |
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