With so many issues and wars around the world, watching a modern day heist go down has a refreshing spirit to it. Recently, the Louvre in Paris was robbed in broad daylight. About $102 million dollars worth of French crown jewels were stolen by 4 suspects dressed as construction workers. It’s honestly impressive how efficient they were as they were in and out in 7 minutes as soon as the museum opened. One would think that a museum holding such valuable pieces of history would have greater security measures but this heist said otherwise.
This reminds me of the Netflix original series “Lupin.” The series is inspired by the Lupin novels where the main character pulls off a similar heist in the Louvre in the first episode. The show definitely romanticizes art thieves and glamorizes the lifestyle which could be a problem on its own but nonetheless it made for a great TV series in my opinion.
This event has created many memes on social media including people praising the thieves and calling the heist ‘chic’. Because a heist sounds so outdated people have also made their own videos interpreting how it went down. There’s also been memes of people comparing this to cartoon villains like Balthazar Bratt from Despicable Me 4.
Many speculate that the thieves were hired for an inside job or was done so by organized crime groups. Not only was this theft, it was also a heritage crime. These jewels don’t just have monetary value they have cultural value as well. It raises the question of how France plans to recover from this burglary as they have just lost monumental pieces of history.
Despite the cultural loss from this event, I think many people were relieved when hearing about this crime in their news network. It was almost like a nice break from all the overwhelming news that has been coming out in the recent months. All this to say, I don’t think this case should just be dismissed as valuable items are lost and who knows if we’re ever going to see these pieces again.
