Visitors take pictures of the painting "La Liberte guidant le peuple" (Liberty Leading the People, 1830) by French artist Eugene Delacroix (1798 –1863) displayed in the salle Mollien of Denon wing at the Louvre Museum on the day it reopened to the public for the first time since last Sunday's heist, while the Galerie d'Apollon where eight pieces of Napoleon and the Empress's jewelry collection displayed in the gallery were stolen by thieves, remains closed, in Paris, France, October 22, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes

PARIS (Reuters) -The Louvre has transferred some of its most precious jewels to the Bank of France, according to French radio RTL, after an audacious daylight heist last week exposed the famed museum's security vulnerability.

The transfer of some precious items from the museum's Apollo gallery, home to the French crown jewels, was carried out on Friday under secret police escort, RTL said, citing unnamed sources.

The Bank of France, which stores the country's gold reserves in a massive vault 27 meters (88 feet) below ground, is just 500 meters away from the Louvre, on the Right Bank of the River Seine.

The Louvre and the Bank of France did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The thieves stole eight precious pieces worth an estimated $102 million from the Louvre's collection on October 19, exposing security lapses as they broke into the world's most-visited museum using a crane to smash an upstairs window during opening hours. They escaped on motorbikes.

News of the robbery reverberated around the world, prompting soul-searching in France over what some viewed as a national humiliation.

(Reporting by Alessandro Parodi; editing by Michel Rose and Mark Heinrich)