The Louvre robbery. Jewel thieves escape 30 seconds before police arrive

The investigation revealed that the accused in the Louvre robbery in October fled 30 seconds before the police arrived at the scene. This was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian.

An investigation initiated by the French Ministry of Culture after this scandalous robbery revealed that only one of the two CCTV cameras near the museum building was working.

Security control room staff lacked screens to monitor images in real time, and due to a lack of coordination, police were initially sent to the wrong location after an alarm went off, according to the report, details of which were made public at a meeting of the French Senate's culture committee.

"This underscores the general failure of the museum, as well as its supervisory bodies, to address security issues," said the commission's chairman, Laurent Lafont, at the start of the hearing on Wednesday.

The article says that one of the most surprising revelations was that the thieves had only 30 seconds before the police and private security guards arrived.

"Given those 30 seconds, Securitas guards or the police in the car could have prevented the thieves from escaping," Noel Corben, head of the investigation team, told the senators.

He said that measures such as a modern video surveillance system, stronger glass, or better internal coordination could have prevented the loss of the jewelry, which is estimated to be worth 88 million euros and has not yet been recovered.

Several studies conducted over the past decade have identified serious security vulnerabilities. This was confirmed by a 2019 audit performed by experts from the Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry company. The audit emphasized that the balcony on the river side, which was targeted by thieves, was a weak point and could be easily accessed using a retractable staircase, which is exactly what happened during the robbery.

Corbyn confirmed that Louvre director Laurence de Carre was not aware of the audit ordered by her predecessor Jean-Luc Martinez.

"The recommendations were not taken into account because they would have allowed us to avoid this robbery," Corbyn said, adding that there was a lack of coordination between the two government-appointed administrators.

Police believe they have arrested all four men, who fled on motorcycles after carrying out the robbery at the Apollo Gallery in a total of about 10 minutes, according to the investigation.

• On October 19, four people disguised as museum employees broke into the Louvre. Having opened the showcases in the Apollo Gallery, they stole a total of nine pieces of jewelryone of them, the crown of Empress Eugenie (wife of Napoleon III), encrusted with 1354 diamonds, was lost during the escape.
• Damages from the Louvre robbery is estimated at 88 million euroshowever, France will not receive payments for the stolen jewelry because they were not insured.
• After the theft, part of the jewelry collection was transported from the Louvre to the the Bank of France's underground vault.
• november 25 paris police detained the last of four suspects in the robbery.