The robbers came about half-an-hour after the museum opened.

Since a brazen heist on the morning of Oct. 19, French officials have described a dramatic scene that unfolded at the world's most-visited museum:

As visitors poured into the Louvre, a group of robbers found another way in. The suspects drove a truck up to the museum, part of which was originally built as a castle. They stopped on a road near the Seine River on the south side.

Two of them climbed a ladder to a second-floor balcony carrying tools they used to break through a window leading to the gilded Gallery of Apollo, home to the French Crown Jewels. Once inside, they smashed glass display cases and snatched nine pieces of historic jewelry as the alarms sounded and the museum staff evacuated panicked tourists.

Less than seven minutes after the brazen robbery began, they escaped on motorbikes in broad daylight. Despite several missteps ‒ including dropping a diamond and emerald-encrusted gold crown on their way out, leaving behind forensic evidence and being caught on security footage ‒ the robbers and the jewels still haven't been found.

Though stealing royal treasures from an iconic location may sound like a scene from a heist movie, the reality is far less glamorous than you might think.

The key difference between real heists and their fictional counterparts is the level of security the thieves must conquer, according to Robert Wittman, a retired FBI agent who founded the bureau's international art crime team.

"There's no laser beams that these guys had to dance around like Catherine Zeta-Jones in the movie 'Entrapment,' and there was no walls coming together like Pierce Brosnan had with 'The Thomas Crown Affair,' " said Wittman, author of "Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures."

"None of that's real."

Instead, museums are notoriously hard to protect. That means the robbers in Paris may not have been elite criminals, as the movies would suggest.

"This is sort of like 'Ocean's 11,' but a lot sloppier ... This was an elite smash and grab," said Christopher A. Marinello, founder of Art Recovery International, which has helped return about $600 million worth of stolen art. "It wasn't the heist of the century, but it certainly, so far, could be the heist of the decade."

Some real-life art heists have been elaborate

Some of the most notorious art heists in history have involved the kind of subterfuge seen in the movies.

In 1990, for example, two robbers dressed as Boston police officers talked their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, restrained the guards and made off with 13 pieces of artwork 81 minutes later. Around 2,000 artifacts were stolen from the British Museum over a long period in what the institution described in 2023 as an "inside job."

But theft is a known risk for museums, which struggle to balance security with providing public access to national treasures, particularly in old buildings like the Louvre, according to Erin Thompson, a professor who studies art crime at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

She noted the stolen jewels were displayed in a gallery with big windows looking out onto a busy street, rather than deeper inside the building where they might have been harder to steal.

"I say museums have poor security, but it's sort of like 'well what else are they supposed to do?'" she said. "It's kind of a hazard of the game."

Jewel heist becoming more common

Thompson said the Louvre heist is one of an increasing number targeting gems and gold pieces that can be easily broken down and sold, unlike famous paintings and sculptures. Experts said the Louvre robbery bore many of the hallmarks of these crimes, including getting away on motorbikes, entering the property in broad daylight and using brute force.

"It's a pretty standard MO and we've seen more of this as jewelry stores have tightened their security," Thompson said.

In 2019, thieves stole pieces that contained more than 4,300 diamonds with an estimated $124 million by breaking through a grilled window at the Gruenes Gewoelbe museum in eastern Germany. Most of the jewels were eventually recovered.

At least four French museums have been robbed in the last two months, according to media reports, including Paris' Museum of Natural History. Prosecutors said they arrested a Chinese-born woman for the theft of six gold nuggets worth about $1.75 million from the museum while she was trying to dispose of some melted gold.

In January, robbers used explosives to gain access to the Drents Museum in the Netherlands and steal three golden bracelets and the golden helmet of Cotofenesti, from the fifth century B.C.

But Marinello, of Art Recovery International, said smaller museums in Europe have been the primary targets, which is what makes the Louvre heist "so shocking and so brazen, so audacious." He said the heist highlights the need for all museums to tighten their security.

"This is very important cultural heritage that is at threat of being destroyed and lost forever, just so some stupid criminal can buy a Lamborghini SUV," he said. "We need to stop it."

Contributing: Karissa Waddick, USA TODAY; Reuters

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Louvre heist sounds like a movie plot. Here's what Hollywood gets wrong.

Reporting by N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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