Louvre heist thieves used a stolen furniture lift to break into the Louvre's Apollo Gallery. Photo / Getty Images
Thieves carjacked the furniture lift used to break into the Louvre for the smash-and-grab raid nine days before the crown jewel heist.
A gang of burglars scaled the side of the world’s most visited gallery on a truck-mounted lift, where they forced open a window with an angle grinder and entered the Apollo Gallery.
After snatching eight “priceless” treasures and dropping a crown that belonged to Empress Eugénie, they fled via the furniture lift, which they tried to torch before making their escape on scooters.
The head of a rental service that owned the vehicle told The Telegraph it was stolen in the nearby town of Louvres, two miles (3.2km) from Charles de Gaulle Airport to the north-east of Paris.
On the morning of October 10, an employee drove out to the town in Val-d’Oise where he was scheduled to hand over the Mitsubishi Canter Fuso, equipped with a 90-foot (27m) ladder, to a rental driver.
At the drop-off point, two men arrived on a motorbike who “intimidated” and threatened the driver.
One took off with the truck and the other fled on the bike.
Contrary to reports in French media, there was no weapon and the employee was not assaulted.
The rental firm chief, who wishes to remain anonymous, did not know where the vehicle had gone until he saw it on the news and he informed police.
“We have nothing to do with this. It’s bothersome,” he told The Telegraph.
The thieves appear to have added a cloned number plate from another truck in the days before the heist.
Records show the number plate pictured on the truck is for a 2018 model of an Isuzu Series N registered in the Paris region.
They also painted the vehicle grey to cover the logos.
“I was surprised and annoyed,” added the rental firm boss.
A petrol container left behind during the frantic getaway also suggests that the vehicle wasn’t meant to be left intact.
In an audio recording obtained by French news channel BFMTV, the museum’s director of public reception and surveillance can be heard explaining that security guards had thwarted the thieves’ plans to set the truck on fire.
“A number of security guards exited and made them flee,” she said during a staff meeting. “By making them flee, they prevented them from setting fire to the device.”
With the petrol container, the thieves left a trail of clues behind, including a scooter helmet, blowtorch, walkie-talkie, yellow vest, and a blanket.
The entire operation lasted about seven minutes.
“We have been defeated,” Laurence des Cars, president of the Louvre, said during an appearance in the French Senate on Wednesday.
“Today we are experiencing a terrible failure at the Louvre, for which I take my share of responsibility.”
During the questioning, des Cars said that the perimeter of the museum was a weak spot, and admitted that the museum failed to detect the arrival of the thieves “sufficiently in advance”.
She also revealed that the balcony of the Gallery of Apollo, where the thieves entered, was not covered by outside security cameras and that the few cameras that monitor the perimeter are also ageing.
“The weaknesses in our perimeter protection are known and identified.”
Des Cars also proposed setting up a police station within the museum and pointed out that the historic museum’s ageing infrastructure does not allow for the installation of modern security technologies.
Peter Fowler, whose company Westminster Group provides security solutions for the Tower of London, said what struck him the most was how quickly and easily the thieves were able to access the jewels.
“To be able to go up the ladder, through the window, grab the items and down again in seven minutes means they were able to pick up those items extremely easily,” Fowler told The Telegraph.
“And that surprised me because there are ways of displaying high value items… that would take you certainly a lot longer than seven minutes to get through.”
Fowler also bemoaned what he said appeared to be a lack of “layered security,” that includes electronic surveillance and physical layers, pointing out that even something as simple as reinforced glass or window shutters that drop automatically once alarms are triggered could offer greater protection.
“The fact that these were grab-able quickly, I think, is what encouraged these thieves to do it.”
The facility of the heist also suggests that museum staff are “lackadaisical” and complacent about their risk assessments, he added.
“It’s a wake up call for other premises around the world, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, that they should be looking and reviewing their own security procedures and risk assessments.”
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