The band of robbers who broke into the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday morning and stole eight Napoleonic pieces of priceless jewellery in a four-minute heist were just the latest in a long line of daring thieves who have targeted the iconic museum.

The robbers used a truck-mounted ladder to reach the gilded Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo’s Gallery) on the second floor before taking an angle grinder to a window to access the French crown jewels. The heist took place at 9:30am (07:30 GMT), half an hour after the museum opened to visitors for the day. The robbers are still at large and the Louvre is currently closed.

A ninth item they stole – the crown belonging to Empress Eugenie, Napoleon III’s wife – was recovered nearby after it was dropped by the group, the French Ministry of the Inte

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