يحاول ذهب - حر
'Smash, grab, melt it down' Audacious heist motivated by artefacts' material value
October 21, 2025
|The Guardian
To break into the world's most-visited museum in broad daylight, grab eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanish into the Paris traffic on scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning's heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smashand-grab thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artefacts' significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.
"You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a worldfamous museum rather than a Cartier store," said Christopher A Marinello, an expert in the recovery of stolen works of art.
"The answer is simple: a Cartier store is better protected." A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts caused many outlets to beef up security in recent years, with armed guards and wares no longer kept on display overnight.
Museums look more exposed, being public-facing institutions in historic buildings and given the economic climate.
"Since Covid, governments across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector," said Marinello. "If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum." The theft of the objects including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III's wife that the thieves dropped by the
roadside on their way out - has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.
هذه القصة من طبعة October 21, 2025 من The Guardian.
اشترك في Magzter GOLD للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة، وأكثر من 9000 مجلة وصحيفة.
هل أنت مشترك بالفعل؟ تسجيل الدخول
المزيد من القصص من The Guardian
The Guardian
Open letter Jewish signatories in call for sanctions
Prominent Jewish figures around the world are calling on the United Nations and world leaders to impose sanctions on Israel over what they describe as \"unconscionable\" actions amounting to genocide in Gaza.
3 mins
October 23, 2025
The Guardian
One in 12 pupils 'in isolation at least weekly'
One in 12 secondary pupils report being put into school isolation rooms at least once a week where they often spend in excess of eight hours, missing more than a full day of lessons, according to research.
3 mins
October 23, 2025
The Guardian
Now Milan's Serie A game in Perth could be called off
Serie A's plan to host a match in Australia could be the next attempt at staging a domestic fixture abroad to be scrapped, following the abandonment of La Liga's efforts to move Barcelona's game against Villarreal to Miami.
2 mins
October 23, 2025

The Guardian
Tour de archive Kraftwerk artist's musical collection goes up for sale
He was a pioneer of electronic music whose band Kraftwerk redefined the sound of pop and influenced artists from David Bowie and New Order to Coldplay and Run-DMC.
2 mins
October 23, 2025

The Guardian
Foul is fair in this Macbeth of hard-bitten gangsters
Audiences arriving to find the RSC's studio stage fitted out with bar stools may worry they have booked for Conor McPherson's The Weir or Roddy Doyle's Two Pints, plays set in Irish pubs.
1 mins
October 23, 2025
The Guardian
'If I'm not winning, the fans will come at me'
Sean Dyche may take special pride in his return to Forest, but he has no illusions as to the scale of the task at hand
3 mins
October 23, 2025

The Guardian
Airstrikes Nursery, homes and energy grid hit in wave of Russian attacks
Russian drones and missiles have pounded Ukraine’s capital and other cities, hours after the cancellation of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
2 mins
October 23, 2025

The Guardian
Prince Andrew MPs push for inquiry into Royal Lodge living arrangements
Keir Starmer has indicated he is open to MPs questioning Prince Andrew in person about his residence at Royal Lodge, where he has lived for more than 20 years without paying rent.
2 mins
October 23, 2025

The Guardian
Power ballad Marinakis calls the tune at Forest - but what exactly is the owner's endgame?
And let's be real, we're not getting that from Avram Glazer any time soon.
3 mins
October 23, 2025
The Guardian
Do we need to worry about shadow banking? It depends on the number of cockroaches
'Im not an entomologist,\" said CS Venkatakrishnan, Barclays chief executive, dodging the question everybody is asking: how many cockroaches are about to crawl out of the woodwork in the private credit market?
2 mins
October 23, 2025
Listen
Translate
Change font size