Louvre heist and the rising price of gold

Museum raids are becoming more audacious as criminals pivot to demand for precious metals and tangible treasures.

- Lionel Laurent

A ladder truck, an angle grinder, a maxi scooter, and seven minutes. That appears to be all it took for thieves to nab priceless jewellery from the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum. The vulnerability of this cornerstone of French soft power adds to the country’s sense of malaise, and fingers are being pointed over apparent security flaws.

But it speaks to something much broader, too: Criminals' boundless hunger for gold and other precious metals and gems — not fine art — as the value of these commodities soars.

Museum raids are becoming ever more audacious as the gold price has doubled in a year and jumped tenfold in two decades. A stampede of investors fleeing erstwhile safe assets such as government bonds is making real stuff you can keep in safes or vaults hugely desirable. The smash and grabbers are taking note.

In September, thieves used a blow torch and an angle-grinder to steal €600,000 (S$903,000) worth of gold nuggets from the Paris Natural History Museum.