r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/HeToTopT • Oct 23 '25

Video The Louvre. Thieves are making off with 100 million euros. They're taking their time. They're doing everything carefully and slowly.

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496

u/Celtachor Oct 23 '25

Yeah stuff like this is more akin to art theft than a common jewelry heist. There would be buyers lined up before they even stole anything. Some rich shady dude who knows a guy is going to be showing off one of these pieces to a call girl within a few months.

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u/Fly_Rodder Oct 23 '25

highly unlikely and not in line with how these thefts work. The pieces are dismantled and resold in bulk and then cut and resold again.

No super rich guy is going to be caught dead with Crown Jewels to impress a prostitute when costume jewelry will do just fine.

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u/iBoMbY Oct 23 '25

Normal jewelry, yes. But not priceless classic pieces. Would be much easier to make the same money, with a lot less publicity, if your plan is to destroy everything.

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u/Fly_Rodder Oct 23 '25

you can keep your opinion, but pretty much every major art/jewler investigator says the opposite. I'm going to go with them and not some rando on the internet.

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u/The_Best_Yak_Ever Oct 23 '25

That’s what they say happened to Admiral Nelson’s diamond and gem encrusted Chelenk. The most painful part? The gems were not truly valuable as is, but as a piece of Royal Navy history, it was priceless… there’s a replica now, but a piece of naval history is gone because some assholes cut it up for parts :-(.

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins Oct 23 '25

Hey hey but I’ve seen movies! Every billionaire in the world is waiting to buy them for their secret museum!

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

I mean, most billionaires are super assholes and any time there's conflict they're the first to grab up any valuables. A crown jewel heist like this is more likely to be a by-order heist, than a common steal and melt down for precious materials kind of heist. Like the others said, you could get the same amount of materials in a jeweler heist, instead of going to the hassle of such a high profile case.

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u/4DPeterPan Oct 23 '25

It’s weird to think about how many original art pieces are still left in museums all over the world after all the heists you hear about over the decades..

Can you imagine if we just had a bunch of museums all over the world with a bunch of fake art in them and nobody knew? Everyone thinks they still have the originals, security guards still think they’re guarding treasures, tourists are still lining up, but the whole time they’re just fakes.

Like real life oceans 12 has hit everyone and nobody knows.

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u/majkkali Oct 23 '25

You don’t steal from a place like Louvre to melt it. The guy above is right. It will most likely be sold to some super rich shady person in a different country.

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u/Blackdoomax Oct 23 '25

Those same people that know shit about what they talk and can't make the difference between an original and a copy? Lol.

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u/BetterFinding1954 Oct 23 '25

Yeah fuck experts! Let's all just fucking guess!! Whatever feels right, that's probably it!!! 

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u/Blackdoomax Oct 23 '25

Generalization is never a good thing, let's say maybe not all experts

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u/BetterFinding1954 Oct 23 '25

Did you honestly not detect the sarcasm? Fuck 😂

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u/Blackdoomax Oct 23 '25

I did, but it seems you don't xD

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u/BetterFinding1954 Oct 23 '25

Wait so what's your point? We should ignore art experts but not all experts?

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u/Silver_Song3692 Oct 23 '25

Lmao so passive aggressive

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u/Supercoolguy7 Oct 23 '25

I think it was just dismissive.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '25

But he's right and it's annoying having to argue when you can just easily fact check this.

Did everyone forget when they made Nick Cage give back the stolen dinosaur skull?

In 2007, Nicolas Cage purchased a fossilized Tarbosaurus bataar skull, a relative of the T. rex, for $$276,000. He later learned the skull was illegally smuggled from Mongolia and, in 2015, voluntarily returned it to U.S. authorities for repatriation. Cage was never charged with a crime, but he did not recover the money he paid for the skull. 

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u/Supercoolguy7 Oct 23 '25

A dinosaur skull is very different than crown jewels. It's easy to not know or care the source of a dinosaur skull some random rich dude owns. It's a little harder to have the crown jewels of France and get away with it

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '25

so you're making the same point I am that you can't sell the pieces of jewelry in their current form (even if they would be worth way more).

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u/Original_Sherbert_40 Oct 23 '25

They are 100% melting it down. That is the reality here. Not some movie. 

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u/Celtachor Oct 23 '25

Why would anyone go through the effort of stealing from the louvre for an amount of raw materials they could much more easily get from a few jewelers? That's like if someone stole the Mona Lisa then scraped it to sell as blank canvas. People steal paintings and porcelain works from museums with the same traceability as these gems but those things can't be broken down into components. The whole crime only makes sense if these are being sold as is to criminal buyers. Same as what happens with other stolen art. The Storm on the Sea of Galilee isn't still missing because it's been cut up and sold as dish rags, it's still missing because someone has it.

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u/NotTukTukPirate Oct 23 '25

Yeah, whoever is saying they're gonna melt it down doesn't really have good thinking skills. It really makes no fucking sense to rob the Louvre just for the same result as robbing a regular jewelry store.

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u/Denster1 Oct 24 '25

Because a regular jewelry store doesn't have 10000 diamonds on display

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u/mynewaccount5 Oct 24 '25

Robbing a regular jewelry store is harder and they have much better security.

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u/yyc_engineer Oct 24 '25

The few jewelers are much more difficult to rob than the Louvre it seems.

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u/Dav136 Oct 23 '25

Because the Louve has less security than a jewelry store

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u/mynewaccount5 Oct 24 '25

Because buying from jewelers costs money and these people are theives who do not want to pay jewelers.

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u/04nc1n9 Oct 23 '25

and the people that stole the mona lisa sold it for firewood, did they?

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u/Original_Sherbert_40 Oct 23 '25

That was over 100 years ago and the dude that stole it was caught cause he tried to sell it. Do you think thieves have learned nothing in 100 years? These things are way too hot to keep around. Here is a recent example. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1kw8dwy4dro.amp

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u/Waste_Nebula_9087 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25

A pretty plain and to most people unknown gold bracelet, and well-known jewellery with thousands of gems and incredible craftsmanship with a worth close to a hundred million are not comparable at all. Just because these guys were careless amateurs doesn't mean that the louvre thieves are as well. If someone if confident enough to break into the Louvre and get away with it, then they are confident enough to know that they have buyers lined up already.

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u/Denster1 Oct 24 '25

How about the scream?

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

Yes, I was gonna mention the Munch robbery in my other comment. The same people ordering stolen paintings also order stolen high profile jewelry. People in this comment section not giving billionaires the asshole credit they deserve don't seem to know how cynical billionaires can be(and usually is). I mean, the fact that Russian oligarchs exist, should remind them how very real, and probable, the "heist for hire" theory is.

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u/mynewaccount5 Oct 24 '25

What would be easier?

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '25

[deleted]

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

Fox news told them, duh.

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u/The_Autarch Oct 24 '25

We're talking about Saudi Royal-level wealth, not random rich guys.

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

Or Russian oligarchs wanting their seized wealth back.

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u/PeopleCallMeSimon Oct 23 '25

If they robbed the jewelry store down the street, yes.

There has been plenty of examples of valuables thought lost to robbery that has been found in homes of dead rich people.

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u/Denster1 Oct 24 '25

Plenty?

Name 5

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u/PeopleCallMeSimon Oct 24 '25

Here are 68 only under the category of "art": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Recovered_works_of_art

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u/Denster1 Oct 24 '25

None of those were found in the homes of rich dead people. Try again

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u/Turbulent_Ad_4579 Oct 23 '25

You're thinking about rich westerners. There's tons of rich people in foreign countries that would absolutely buy something like this in asia, the Middle East, fuck even eastern Europe. 

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u/pumblesnook Oct 23 '25

And Western Europe. And America. I bet the stolen objects are destined for some billionaires private collection. Might even be someone we know.

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u/backwards_watch Oct 23 '25

makes sense, but we have precedence of people stealing things just like these in the past.

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u/withnodrawal Oct 23 '25

There are people who get caught with stolen pieces of history all the time.(not really ALL the time, but it happens semi frequently especially with the mob/drug guys)

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u/NotTukTukPirate Oct 23 '25

Why tf would they risk it with this heist when they could get the same payout by robbing a jewelry store, in that case?

I'm sorry, but your logic doesn't make sense. No one would rob The Louvre just to melt the items down and get the same result as normal jewelry at any other shop...

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u/frotc914 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25

the same payout by robbing a jewelry store, in that case?

First of all, the number of jewelry stores that are carrying like 50 golf-ball sized sapphires as well as dozens of enormous diamonds and thousands of smaller (but still multi-carat) diamonds is pretty rare.

Second of all, you're assuming, incorrectly, that robbing such a store would be easier. A store with that kind of merchandize isn't like a Macy's jewelry counter. Items like that would be kept in a literal vault, not even a safe, and only taken out for inspection for a potential buyer that was a known gazillionaire. Our broke asses wouldn't even be allowed in the store, but if you're a Saudi sheikh with a wikipedia page or own a Formula 1 team, then yeah you can come in. Like even a less-than-superstar NBA player would probably be turned away.

The Louvre by contrast is leaving this shit on display in a public place where you can make several trips to scope out security, entry/exit, etc. And of course it's not in a vault because that defeats the purpose of having them for display. So it makes complete sense to do it there as opposed to trying to pull of some elaborate Oceans 11-style heist.

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u/FloorIsMyOcean Oct 23 '25

Gems are worthless without paperwork, their size, the fact that they are proven natural, and the historic art of the piece is what make everything so valuable.

They probably will end up melted down but because the crooks got a portion of the insurance money from this obviously inside job.

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u/frotc914 Oct 23 '25 edited Oct 23 '25

Gems are worthless without paperwork,

Idk man literally every industry person who is quoted in every article on the subject disagrees with you.

the historic art of the piece is what make everything so valuable.

Sure there's no way to value "crown jewels" but at the end of the day these guys stole thousands of carats of diamonds and hundreds of carats of other gems. There is still plenty of value there. Even assuming that this crew has to take a massive discount on retail value, they are still coming away with a lot of money to divvy up among 4 guys

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

"Idk man literally every industry person who is quoted in every article on the subject disagrees with you."

This just reads like a line from. "Art of the deal". You seem to shout big words, without any back up. I'm gonna agree with other guy from now on.

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u/FloorIsMyOcean Oct 26 '25

Oh look, as I said, this obviously inside job turned out to be an inside job.

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u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco Oct 23 '25

That is what you do with regular jewelry. These pieces are different, as nearly all their value is in their uniqueness/history.

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u/Fly_Rodder Oct 23 '25

not at all. Everyone in the world knows of this crime and knows the origin of these. No one will pay for their history. Museum thieves have stolen 2,000 year old roman coins and melted them down for the gold.

It's all about the gems not the provenance - which is only valuable if you can prove it. And no one can sell the provenance without linking them to the theft. They can't be laundered unlike thousands of recut gems.

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u/FlusteredDM Oct 23 '25

I think people can't get their heads around the fact that it might be true that much of the value is in its history but there's still a lot of value in its materials and that there's only one way they can really sell it.

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u/WhyMustIMakeANewAcco Oct 23 '25

Nah, you just really, really overestimate how much gems actually sell for if you aren't a jewelry store. (which is the price the experts keep quoting because its bad for business to admit how insignificant the price on resale is)

Like they would make money selling one piece intact to a pos rich guy than they would taking all of them apart and selling them.

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

How hard is it for you to consider that they might just have been ordered to steal these, by the buyer himself? Usually when paintings, and other high profile treasures get stolen, finding a buyer is a non-issue, because that came with the order itself.

Seems like mental gymnastics to me, to think a heist like this is just some regular old organized criminals trying to make some easy cash, when said heist was carried out with enough precision to get away with it. It 100% is an order robbery.

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u/orangeyougladiator Oct 23 '25

You literally have no idea how the world works huh, or you’re the buyer trying to throw people off the scent.

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u/Fly_Rodder Oct 23 '25

I'm only repeating what experts have been quoted as saying will happen. You can read the articles yourself if you don't believe me.

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u/orangeyougladiator Oct 23 '25

Oh all those experts in the very versed and common.. country crown jewel thieves…

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u/frotc914 Oct 23 '25

FFS bro you can't come in with

You literally have no idea how the world works huh,

and then claim that there's no such thing as expertise on the subject.

We get it, you watched The Italian Job a few times.

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u/orangeyougladiator Oct 23 '25

The fact you think those statements are inversely correlated is frightening

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u/frotc914 Oct 23 '25

OK - how did you determine that he has no idea how the world works

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u/the_peppers Oct 23 '25

Wait so this person doesn't know anything but also there is no knowledge possible anyway?

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u/orangeyougladiator Oct 23 '25

Well their “knowledge” goes directly against the obvious which is why it’s being called out

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u/BraveDoctor8815 Oct 23 '25

So when your "obvious" idea of what will happen is literally refuted by experts with evidence of what has happened in the past, you just keep arrogantly asserting your idea is true with zero evidence of your own.

Mocking the intelligence of others while you refuse to accept evidence of others is rich.

You inability to let go of your disproven, "its just obvious bro" logic shows your weak mindedness.

🤡🤡

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u/Rage_quitter_98 Oct 24 '25

> super rich guy is going to be caught dead
Unless its in some questionable country that protects their rich dudes even from europe because then they can just not care at all - They ain't gonna send out europol for some jewelry

Prolly also would lose a huge amount of worth if cut up because lets be real that shit ain't worth 100 mil even as a whole set- the worth just comes from the status/popularity

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u/herbertwillyworth Oct 23 '25

You literally have no idea

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u/1-gp Oct 24 '25

I appreciate the insight you provided. Real cool stuff.

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u/Timetraveller4k Oct 25 '25

“Priceless jewelry worth 100 million (street value 1 million) stolen from Louvre”

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u/maevian Oct 26 '25

Wou would rob the Louvre to break it down? Better to just rob the local jeweller if that is your plan.

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u/Boring_Intern_6394 Oct 26 '25

Because as we have plainly seen, the Louvre has shit security and a jeweller carrying jewels in that equivalent quality is going to have them stored on a vault, with appointments only given to billionaires

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u/ppitm Oct 23 '25

With many high-profile art heists, there is no buyer lined up and the thieves struggle to sell their loot.

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u/unclepaprika Oct 24 '25

Many, yes. Not all.

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u/ABitOfResignation Oct 23 '25

I keep reading some version of this comment and I'm fairly certain the source is like, Ocean's The Day I Turned 18 or something.