Louvre thieves escaped 30 seconds before police arrived, probe finds
Misdirected police and a lack of control room screens let robbers flee the Paris museum with a US$102 million haul moments before help arrived
The thieves who stole crown jewels from the Louvre in October evaded police with just 30 seconds to spare due to avoidable security failures at the Paris museum, a damning investigation revealed on Wednesday.
The investigation, ordered by the culture ministry after the embarrassing daylight heist, revealed that only one of two security cameras was working near the site where the intruders broke in on the morning of Sunday, October 19.
Agents in the security control room did not have enough screens to follow the images in real-time, while a lack of coordination meant police were initially sent to the wrong place once the alarm was raised, the report unveiled at the French Senate’s Culture Commission stated.
“It highlights an overall failure of the museum, as well as its supervisory authority, to address security issues,” the head of the commission, Laurent Lafon, said.
One of the most startling revelations was that the robbers left only 30 seconds before police and private security guards arrived on the scene.