The theft of eight items from the Louvre, including Napoleonic-era jewellery, has left Paris reeling from one of the “most spectacular” but “brazenly simple” heists of the last century.

It comes at a time when museums and art collections are “increasingly being targeted by criminal gangs”, said the BBC , inspired by some of the most daring, and peculiar, art heists in the modern era.

‘History’s biggest art heist’

The Louvre, the most popular museum in the world in 2024 with nearly 9 million visitors, has a “long history of thefts and attempted robberies”, said The Associated Press .

One of the most famous incidents involved the theft of the prized “ Mona Lisa ” in 1911, after a former worker at the museum “walked out with the painting under his coat”. It is thought he wanted to r

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