The Louvre’s $102 million heist — and a password anyone could guess

It sounds like a joke or the plot of a heist film: but when thieves pulled off the audacious $102 million jewel robbery at the Louvre last month, the password protecting the museum’s video surveillance system was, “Louvre.”

That stunning detail, revealed by a museum employee with knowledge of the system, adds another twist to a caper that has left France both embarrassed and enthralled. ABC News reported on Tuesday that the discovery has raised fresh questions about how one of the world’s most secure cultural institutions could be so easily breached.

The heist, which unfolded inside the glittering Apollo Gallery — home to the crown jewels of France — took just seven minutes from start to finish. Investigators say the thieves used a truck-mounted mechanical cherry picker to reach a window, cut through it with power tools, grab the jewels, and vanish into the Paris night.

A seven-minute robbery that stunned France

When Louvre president and director Laurence des Cars testified before the French Senate last month, she admitted that the museum’s security system had “weaknesses.” The only external camera near the Apollo Gallery, she said, faced west — away from the window the thieves used to break in and escape.

“The security system, as installed in the Apollo Gallery, worked perfectly,” des Cars told lawmakers. “The question that arises is how to adapt this system to a new type of attack and modus operandi that we could not have foreseen.”

Despite insisting the alarms and cameras functioned properly, she conceded a “terrible failure” had occurred. “The security of the Louvre is one of my top priorities during my term of office,” des Cars said. “I was appalled by the museum’s security situation when I arrived in 2021.”

The revelation about the simplistic password has now become emblematic of that failure — a lapse so absurd it might have been dismissed as rumor, if not confirmed by insiders.

The hunt for the missing jewels

Nearly a month after the heist, investigators still haven’t recovered the stolen jewels. Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau told Franceinfo radio on Sunday that “all avenues are being explored.”

The arrests of four suspects — none believed to be tied to organized crime — have offered more intrigue than answers. According to Beccuau, the first two men detained were a 39-year-old taxi driver and a 34-year-old delivery man and garbage collector from the northern suburbs of Paris. Their DNA was found at the scene, and both “partially admitted their involvement.”

One of them, the unemployed garbage collector, was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport while attempting to board a one-way flight to Algeria, officials said. The other two charged suspects are a 37-year-old man and his 38-year-old domestic partner, also from northern Paris.

Beccuau confirmed that the arrests had “led to new searches and the seizure of new objects that are being examined,” but warned that “at least one person” involved in the robbery remains at large.

For now, the Apollo Gallery — its cases empty and its windows reinforced — remains closed to visitors, a silent reminder of how, beneath the grandeur of the Louvre, one of the world’s most daring art crimes unfolded behind a password anyone could have guessed.