The Global Story: The Louvre daytime heist that shocked the world

Summary

---

The Global News Podcast: The Global Story

The Louvre Daytime Heist That Shocked the World

Date: October 26, 2025
Host: Asma Khalid and Tristan Redman, BBC World Service
Guest: Erin Thompson, Professor of Art Crime, City University of New York

---

Episode Overview

This special episode of The Global Story delves deep into the sensational daytime heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris, where thieves made off with glittering treasures in a brazen operation. Hosts Asma Khalid (Washington, D.C.) and Tristan Redman (London) speak with Erin Thompson, a leading expert in art crime, to unpack how the crime happened, the murky underworld of art theft, what happens to stolen masterpieces, and why such heists captivate the public imagination.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Heist Details ([02:07]-[06:09])

• How It Happened:

  • Thieves broke into the Louvre moments after opening, using a cherry picker ("basket lift") to access an upper-story window.
  • At least four men were involved, two disguised as construction workers in reflective vests.
  • Used an angle grinder to cut through fortified glass, set off alarms, spent about four minutes inside.
  • The operation appeared meticulously planned; they targeted the Apollo Gallery, home to the French crown jewels.
  • Escaped on motorbikes, but dropped a crown and left behind a motorcycle helmet (possible DNA evidence).

• Quote:

  "If you act confident and have a reflective vest, you can really get away with a huge amount of things."
  —Erin Thompson, [04:12]

• Notable insight:
  Four minutes is a surprisingly "long" duration for such a heist, indicating both preparation and flaws in execution.

---

2. The Stolen Treasures & Their Value ([06:09]-[07:37])

• What Was Stolen:
  • 19th-century Napoleonic-era jewelry: spectacular sapphire- and diamond-encrusted crowns, tiaras, and other royal artifacts.
  • Items described as "super blingy" and evocative of fairy-tale royalty.
• Valuation Complexities:
  • Items’ value can be viewed as raw materials (gems, precious metals), historical/cultural worth, or black-market value.
  • Stolen gem sell-off will yield less than half their street value due to difficulties in unloading such infamous pieces.

---

3. Museum Security Questions ([07:37]-[08:57])

• Security Shortcomings:
  • Recent strikes by Louvre guards over understaffing and excessive crowding may have left vulnerabilities.
  • Museums must balance public access with security—a challenging tension.
• Quote:

  “Museums are just really strange places. Where else can you get within a few inches of things worth millions of dollars without being searched on the way in or out?”
  —Erin Thompson, [08:09]

---

4. Who Commits These Heists & Possible Inside Help ([08:57]-[10:29])

• Usual Suspects:
  • Heists often carried out by "hired guns"—professional thieves contracted for the job, not necessarily major criminal organizations.
  • Inside jobs are more common in cases where items vanish from storage (unnoticed for years), not high-profile smash-and-grabs.
• Quote:

  “The secret there is that a museum might not realize that art is missing for months or years or ever.”
  —Erin Thompson, [10:13]

---

5. What Happens to the Stolen Gems? ([10:29]-[12:19])

• Logistics:

  • Large, unique gems are easily identifiable and essentially unsellable in their current state.
  • To profit, thieves must find a skilled, discreet lapidary to recut them—a significant risk.

• Crime-Fiction Parallel:

  • The "crooked lapidary" is likened to the underworld surgeon in classic heist stories.

• Quote:

  “We might find that the sticking point of this case is finding the crooked lapidary who is being hired to recut these gems.”
  —Erin Thompson, [11:55]

---

6. Motivations and Methods for Fencing Stolen Art ([15:05]-[17:21])

• Three Main Avenues:

  1. Raw Value: Breaking up pieces for sale as materials after recutting stones and melting gold.
  2. Poor Foresight: Some thieves impulsively steal iconic pieces, only to realize later how unsellable they are (sometimes leading to destruction or attempted returns).
  3. Leverage:
     • Art used as bargaining chips or collateral in illegal trades or for reduced prison sentences.
     • Recovery rewards from insurance companies—10% of value for return, but insurers often set up stings to capture thieves.

• Quote:

  “A surprising number of like, ‘eh, why not?’ explains museum thefts.”
  —Erin Thompson, [16:07]

---

7. Notorious Cases and the Fate of Stolen Art ([19:13]-[24:09])

• The Gardner Museum Heist:

  • Still the largest property theft in U.S. history. 13 priceless works remain missing since 1990; recovery now seen as very unlikely.

• Historic Mona Lisa Heist:

  • In 1911, an insider at the Louvre stole the Mona Lisa using knowledge gained from his job.
  • The theft ironically propelled the painting to global fame; previously, it had even hung in a bathroom.

• Quotes:

  “It was essentially a little decor you would look at while brushing your teeth.”
  —Erin Thompson on the Mona Lisa's historic placement, [26:20]
  “Those paintings are fragile... They have probably disintegrated long ago.”
  —Erin Thompson on lost Gardner heist art, [23:58]

---

8. Romanticism and Public Fascination With Art Theft ([27:17]-[28:57])

• Public Sentiment:
  • French public has at times admired successful thieves, granting them folk-hero status (e.g., the "Spider man" thief).
  • The immense lure is in the desire to touch and possess beauty—something museum visitors can only dream of, but thieves experience.
• Context:
  • Thompson adds nuance: Museums, while victims, are also often in possession of artifacts stolen during colonial eras—a fact less discussed in public art theft stories.
• Quote:

  “Everybody wants to hold a masterpiece in their hands. And I think we’re all a little jealous of thieves who get to do that.”
  —Erin Thompson, [28:57]

---

Memorable Moments & Quotes

• On Move Security:
  “If you act confident and have a reflective vest, you can really get away with a huge amount of things.”
  — Erin Thompson, [04:12]

• On the Public Fascination:
  “Museums are just really strange places. Where else can you get within a few inches of things worth millions of dollars without being searched?”
  — Erin Thompson, [08:09]

• On the Fate of Stolen Art:
  “Those paintings are fragile. You can’t just chuck them in an attic. They have probably disintegrated long ago.”
  — Erin Thompson, [23:58]

---

Segment Timestamps

| Segment | Description | Timestamp | |----------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------| | Opening, Setup | Introduction to episode, hosts introduce story | 01:08 | | Heist Details | How the Louvre heist was executed, method, security | 02:07 | | Artifacts & Value | Description of stolen jewels, valuation complexities | 06:09 | | Security Lapses & Museum Dilemmas| Why museums are vulnerable, impact of guard strike | 07:37 | | Usual Suspects & Inside Jobs | Types of criminals, likelihood of inside help | 08:57 | | Disposing of Stolen Gems | Challenges for thieves to sell or alter stolen treasures | 10:29 | | Fencing & Motives | Art as collateral, insurance rewards, recovery anecdotes | 15:05 | | Famous Art Heists | Isabella Stewart Gardner, the Mona Lisa, fate of stolen art | 19:13 | | National Emotion & Public Fascination | Why art heists capture imaginations, museums as both victims and perpetrators | 27:17 | | Closing Reflections | The lure of touching masterpieces, closing thoughts | 28:57 |

---

Concluding Insights

Erin Thompson’s wit and deep expertise illuminate why major museum heists—like the recent one at the Louvre—are both shocking and oddly enchanting to the public. The theft’s success, abetted by both cleverness and gaps in security, raises uncomfortable questions about museums’ dual roles as guardians and historical takers. Above all, this episode underscores the enduring tension between making cultural treasures accessible and keeping them safe, all while reminding us of the strange routes stolen art often takes—and the unlikely stardom their stories often achieve.

---

For listeners craving more, search for “The Global Story” on your BBC podcasts app.

Transcript

[A]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads.

[B]

Outside the uk.

[A]

The US Electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail] Saks Off 5th is your.

[C]

Secret to fashion's most wanted deals at up to 70% off on the hunt for designer steals that'll turn heads and leave a trail of envy. Uncover Gucci, Valentino, Versace, Stuart Weitzman and more. With new arrivals dropping weekly at prices too good to stay confidential, luxe layers, statement boots and tailored essentials From Saks Off 5th will put your wardrobe on the most wanted list. Head to saksofffifth.com or a Saks Off Fifth store near you for a style lineup you won't want to miss.

[D]

Hey there. I'm Asma Khalid.

[E]

And I'm Tristan Redman, and we're here with a bonus episode for you from the Global Story podcast.

[D]

The world order is shifting. Old alliances are fraying and new ones are emerging. Some of this turbulence can be traced to decisions made in the United States. But the US Isn't just a cause of the upheaval. Its politics are also a symptom of it.

[E]

Every day we focus on one story looking at how America and the world shape each other.

[D]

So we hope you enjoy this episode. And to find more of our show, just search for the Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

[E]

When you're visiting a big museum, have you ever assumed that if you get too close to a painting, a steel shutter will snap down and armed men will jump out and stop you? Well, it turns out that just isn't the case. At least not at the world's largest and most visited museum.

[D]

On Sunday, thieves broke into the Louvre in Paris and took just a few minutes to steal some of France's most valuable treasures. And they did it by using a ladder breaking through a window. They escaped with diamond studded jewelry that belonged to French royalty and a tiara given by the Emperor Napoleon to his wife. And the thieves? Well, they're still on the run.

[E]

From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman in London.

[D]

And I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C.

[E]

And today on the Global Story, we delve into the Underworld of art theft. How do criminals steal priceless works of art? And what could they possibly do with them? Next.

[D]

We called up Aaron Thompson, a professor of art crime at City University of New York, to walk us through what happened at the Louvre. Well, Erin, thanks so much for joining us. Could we have you just introduce yourselves to us? I see you described as an art crime professor. What does that mean?

[B]

It means I've gone to way too much school. I have a PhD in art history, and then I went to law school. And now I look at various intersections between art and crime. So forgery, fraud, theft. I could teach you how to steal a masterpiece, but then I'd have to catch you.

[D]

I love that.

[B]

So just a couple minutes after the museum opened, the guards suddenly encountered intruders in the Apollo Gallery, which is a large, ornate gallery stuffed full of the French crown jewels. And they had come up through a cherry picker, a basket lift parked on the street below. If you want to be lifted up to change the bulb on a street lamp, for example, you'll see this type of equipment. They used it to lift themselves up to an upper story window and get access.

[D]

How many of them are we talking about? You're saying they. How many?

[B]

We know there were at least four men involved. Two of them put on construction worker reflective vests and operated the equipment. Which is always good to know that if you act confident and have a reflective vest, you can really get away with a huge amount of things.

[E]

People will just assume the hi vis vest is a good hiding in plain sight tactic, isn't it?

[B]

Exactly. So once they got to the right level, they used an angle grinder to break through the window, which indicates that it was probably of fortified glass of some sort, bulletproof, strengthened.

[D]

So they like smashed a window.

[B]

They cut an opening in the window. As soon as the glass breaks, alarms go off and the timer starts ticking from when you can get out of the museum and escape before the police cordon off the street. And we think that the thieves spent only about four minutes from when they hopped through the window to when they hopped back out. So they clearly had scoped out everything. They went right to the display cases. They wanted to target, smash them, grab the things. Right.

[D]

Because they got a lot of stuff in four minutes.

[B]

Four minutes is actually pretty long for a heist of this type. Yeah, usually it's more like two or three minutes. Then they went back out onto the equipment, lowered themselves down, they hopped onto their motorbikes, and they took off. They did drop at least one of the crowns, which Suggests they didn't plan very well for what they were going to put the objects in. Shouldn't drop a crown. And even more devastatingly for the thieves, one of them also left behind his motorcycle helmet, which might contain traces of DNA. So the police are definitely running that through the databases right now.

[D]

Okay, Erin, I wanna pause. You said crown jewels. You know, we don't have crown jewels here, so I just want to understand, what do you exactly mean? These are artifacts, crowns that the monarch had at some point. Help me understand what they are.

[B]

All of the stolen pieces were from the 19th century, so Napoleonic era, emperors and empresses, and they are super blingy. Imagine you're stereotypical princess crown, something that Sleeping Beauty would wear at the end of the movie. They looked like that. Very traditional. Necklaces, crowns, earrings in matched sapphires and diamonds.

[E]

And what's the value of this entire haul that was taken? Have we got any idea?

[B]

The value is hard to calculate because you can look at it in different ways. There's the value of the raw materials, the gems and the metals. There's the historical value, which is greater than that. And then there's the black market value. So even if you are just ripping out the gems and melting down the metals, you're gonna have to find somebody a little less scrupulous to take them. So the theft is probably going to yield only less than half the street value of these pieces if they get away with it.

[E]

Inevitably. I'm sure questions will be asked at this stage about the security in the gallery. I mean, how surprised are you that this situation has played out the way it has?

[B]

A few months ago, the Louvre security guards went on strike, saying that there wasn't enough security in the museum. There are too many visitors. There weren't enough guards. So if I were an enterprising thief, I would have been very interested in that news story. And the museums always have a tension between budget and security. There's a limit to how much security you can put into a museum, because museums are just really strange places. Where else can you get within a few inches of things worth millions of dollars without being searched on the way in or out, without passing a background check? Not many places and museums are supposed to be this calm, contemplative, aesthetic experience. So if you're having an armed guard standing behind you, it's not very relaxing. So museums have to compromise between what they want to let you do. Get up close to the works of our shared cultural heritage and what they are supposed to do, which is protect those works from being Snatched by anybody who comes in off the street.

[D]

So at this point, Aaron, what do we know about who the police thinks did this?

[B]

We don't know anything for sure. Almost every case like this where it's a smash and grab in a museum, the people who actually are entering the museum are hired guns. They are low level habitual thieves who are skilled at doing this sort of thing, who are doing it for a reward, who are hired to do it by who, though usually it can be a local gang. It can be broader than that. I would say that this is well planned crime, but not necessarily organized crime. Especially if you're taking something that can be melted down. Right. Anybody can walk into a gold resale shop and sell it by the pound. You don't need to be in the mafia to have the connections to do that.

[E]

Erin, I have to ask, is it possible that someone in the museum could have been in on this? Could it be a kind of inside job of some description? How often does that happen?

[B]

It does happen, but museum insiders are usually smarter. They don't take art from display. They take art from storage. The secret there is that a museum might not realize that art is missing for months or years or ever. So you have plenty of time to sell it.

[E]

Are there, amongst these jewels, are there particularly large diamonds or other rare gems like that, where, I mean, you can melt down a gold crown but you can't melt down a diamond? So what do you actually do with a big jewel?

[B]

There's really two sizes of gems in the pieces that were stolen. There's little like eraser sized diamonds, which are valuable, but harder to keep track of. Those they can probably resell fairly easily. The larger gems, the centerpieces of the crowns and the earrings, those will be very recognizable to anybody who buys and sells gems. They're huge. They're gorgeous.

[D]

Yeah, Tristan, you have to look at it. They are gorgeous. The sapphire is like yay big.

[E]

I don't know what you mean. Like a tennis ball macaron sized to.

[B]

Give an appropriate French.

[E]

All right, so imagine, Erin, tomorrow you find yourself with a macaroon sized sapphire. You're sitting in your kitchen having just robbed it. What are you doing with it?

[B]

You can't just take it to a jeweler and sell it. They're going to look at it and say, oh, this is an old fashioned 19th century cut on that gem. I've been reading in the papers about gem thefts. I can send the police the exact weight of this and they will be able to recognize it like that.

[D]

So oh wow.

[B]

You have to, if you are selling stolen gems of that size, get them recut. And there are a limited number of people in the world with those skills and you have to find somebody who's not going to ask too many questions. So we might find that the sticking point of this case is finding the crooked lapidary who is being hired to recut these gems.

[E]

Okay, so the crooked lapidary in this case is the kind of crime fiction equivalent of after you rob a bank and one of your crew gets shot by one of the security guards, you have to go to see the crooked doctor who will pull the bullet out of someone's leg. Is that right?

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

The U.S. electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail] hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and.

[B]

I'm the founder of meaningful beauty. When Dr. Sabah and I decided to do a skincare line together, he said to me, we are going to give women meaningful beauty. And I said, that's exactly right. We want to give women meaningful beauty, which means each and every product is meaningful. It has a a reason to exist. It's efficacious. You're going to get results and then you just go out and live your life. Meaningful Beauty Confidence is beautiful. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.

[C]

What kind of programs does this school have? How are the test scores? How many kids do a classroom? Homes.com knows these are all things you ask when you're home shopping as a parent. That's why Each listing on Holmes.com includes extensive reports on local schools, including photos, parent reviews, test scores, student teacher ratio, school rankings, and more. The information is from multiple trusted sources and curated by Holmes.com's dedicated in house research team. It's all so you can make the right decision for your family. Homes.com, we've done your homework. Did you know that parents rank teaching financial literacy as the toughest life skill? That's where greenlight comes in. The debit card and money app made for families. With greenlight, you can send money to kids quickly, set up chores, automate allowance, and track spending with real time notifications. Kids learn how to earn Save and spend responsibly while parents have peace of mind knowing smart money habits are being built with guardrails in place. Try Greenlight Risk free [e-mail] iheartra that's greenlight.com iheart.

[D]

Erin, you've been describing these gems as being, at least in their current form, extremely recognizable. And one of the questions we've been wondering is, well, why would a thief steal extremely recognizable art? What do you do with these?

[B]

There are a couple of different routes to profiting from stealing from museums. One is if you take things that you can transform easily where the raw materials are valuable. So here, the gems in their current state are recognizable, but if you cut each big one down into a couple of new ones, nobody's going to be able to tell the difference. Some thiefs steal very recognizable paintings or sculptures because they're good at stealing stuff and not too good about thinking through the consequences.

[D]

It's like an adrenaline high.

[B]

You spot the security flaws. You think, I could take this.

[D]

And you do.

[B]

And then the next day you wake up and the newspaper headlines are full of pictures of your thing that you've stolen. And you're like, oh, crap. And some thieves then just destroy the paintings. Some turn them over to police to try and take the heat off. Some get caught the first time they try and sell something. So a surprising number of like, eh, why not? Explains museum thefts. And then a third main category are people who take works of art knowing that they're recognizable, knowing they'll never be able to sell them but have different plans. Some of them use them as bargaining chips. If they're caught for some other crime, they say, well, if you reduce my sentence, I'll tell you where the missing Matisse is or whatever. Some of them use them as collateral for black market drug deals because it's very easy to transport a painting across the national border. Much easier than a suitcase full of cash. And then if they ever need to cash it in, they will collect an insurance reward from, you know, giving it to somebody's girlfriend who'll go to the insurance company and say, hey, I found this thing. And often in European museums who have insurance, the reward for no questions asked return is about 10% of the market value of the piece.

[D]

Sorry, insurance like the museums, you're saying, insure these pieces of art?

[C]

Yes.

[D]

And you'll get an insurance reward from it.

[B]

Huh.

[E]

Could you just walk us through step by step, how that actually works? Right. Imagine that I have stolen the Mona Lisa. How's the Mona Lisa going From being in my possession to being handed back to the museum for a reward without it being traced back to me. Could you just go through every step of that process, please?

[D]

Yes.

[B]

So if you have a stolen work of art that has been stolen from a museum that has insurance, often Lloyds of London or whatever insurance company will offer a reward for return because if they can recover the piece and give it back to the museum, they won't have to pay the full value of that piece. So they'll say usually around 10% of the value for whoever gets it to us. The thief can just give it to somebody who'll pretend they don't know about it and turn it over to the insurance company. The real trick is that, of course, the insurance company doesn't want to pay that reward. So they'll often try and set up a sting operation to entrap the person who is trying to collect the reward to show that they were actually connected to the. The. The Dulwich Picture Gallery in London did this for a Rembrandt painting that's been actually stolen three times. So often they call it the takeaway Rembrandt. That sting operation almost went off the rails because they convinced a man to fly over from Amsterdam with the painting. But he noticed they had only bought him a one way ticket and got a little suspicious. Vicious. They managed to convince him it was all an error and he came over, got arrested, and they got the painting back.

[D]

So, Erin, you laid out all these reasons why a thief might want to steal a particular piece of art. Does anybody ever do this just because they love art and they just want to have a particular painting around their house?

[B]

A lot of art thieves appreciate art, but very few people actually keep the art that they steal. There are a handful of exceptions, but they can wreak a lot of havoc. So the Frenchman Stefan Breitweiser spent about seven years stealing from over 50 museums. He took around 300 pieces and he didn't sell them. He just kept them all in his bedroom where he would lay on his four poster bed and contemplate them.

[D]

Wow.

[E]

And what happened to those works?

[B]

In the end, he was arrested. Ironically, his girlfriend, who was the only one who knew he was stealing, had made him promise to wear gloves. He stole a hunting bugle from the Richard Wagner Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland, and didn't wear gloves. So she insisted on going back to the museum. A few days later, she went inside with some rubbing alcohol and a handkerchief to rub things down to make sure that there'd be no fingerprints. He Took a little walk in the park around the museum and was recognized by a retired journalist walking his dog, who had seen the announcement. So he called the cops, and they came and arrested him. And while Breitvisor was in jail, his girlfriend, who wasn't recognized, drove back home, and the girlfriend and Breitweiser's mother between them, destroyed all of the works of art. They burned paintings by Lucas Cranach and Watteau, and they threw a lot of musical instruments and silver goblets into a canal.

[E]

Oh, that's terrible. Can we just rewind a second just to. You were talking about artworks being used as collateral in criminal undertakings. Could you explain exactly how that works, please?

[D]

Sure.

[B]

So criminals, just like everybody else, need to put down some collateral if they want a loan. So say you want to sell some coke, but you don't have the money to pay for it upfront. You have a painting stolen from a museum, you give that over to the person who's selling you the drugs. You go and sell the drugs and then pay them back and recollect your painting. If for some reason you're arrested, that person can turn over the painting for the insurance reward. So it's a handy form of collateral that can be easily concealed and carried across borders.

[D]

Is it usually the case that artwork is recovered? And, Erin, I asked this in part because I was a reporter for several years in Boston, and the classic case of art heist that I recall is Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, which, for listeners who are unfamiliar to this day, that artwork hasn't been recovered, and there's like, these two empty frames, and everybody goes and visits the museums just to go see the two empty frames that are there.

[B]

Multiple empty frames. They still have 13.

[D]

Oh, it's more than multiple empty, too. Okay. The two are the ones that I always remember, the two big ones.

[B]

The big ones.

[D]

So tell us, is that an anomaly that those artworks were just never recovered?

[B]

The Gardner Museum heist is still the largest property theft in American history in terms of value. On St. Patty's Day night, 1990, two men dressed as police officers knocked on the door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, saying that they had received reports of a disturbance. The guards on duty let them in. There was only two night guards, and they were promptly threatened by guns, overpowered, tied up. And the thieves spent an incredibly long time, nearly an hour in the museum cutting artworks out, out of their frames, stealing 13 pieces before disappearing. The works have essentially vanished. A few reports came in of people claiming to have them, but it was never certain. That they actually had them versus were just trying to con their way into a share of the reward. And those artworks have never been recovered. And my extremely depressing take is that they will not be recovered. I think that either they were destroyed to take the heat off, or even if they were stashed, you know, buried, put in somebody's attic. Those paintings are fragile. You can't just chuck them in an attic. They have probably disintegrated long ago. As soon as stolen art begins to circulate, the chances of it being recovered go up. And sometimes it takes a long time. It can take decades before a stolen artwork makes it back to a museum, but it'll happen.

[E]

Could you tell us a little bit about the. I mean, earlier on, we were talking about my hypothetically stealing the Mona Lisa, but the Mona Lisa was actually once stolen. Could you tell us the story of that, please? Because I don't really know it.

[B]

In 1911, an Italian man who is living in France was working at the Louvre. He was helping reframe some of the paintings to make them more secure to be in locked frames. But the problem with making things more secure is that the people who do it then know all the secrets. So he kept his little worker's uniform, dressed in it, went into the museum on a day when it was closed to the public, took the Mona Lisa into a stairwell. It was just hanging on a hook on the wall, undid it from the special secure case, stuffed the painting under his smock, and then faced his first big challenge, which was he was locked in the stairway, but he made enough noise that another workman just heard him and let him out because he thought he was another worker. And then he walked right out. The empty space was noticed, became a huge outcry. Thousands of people came just to look at the empty space on the wall. Many people were arrested and suspected of the theft. Picasso was even hauled in because, you know, radical young artist, who knows what he's capable of. And the thief kept the painting under his mattress for years. He always said that he did it out of patriotism. He wanted to bring it back to Italy because it was a great work by an Italian master, Leonardo da Vinci. But I kind of doubt this patriotic story because the first time it showed up was when the thief tried to sell it to an Italian dealer who basically was like, oh, very nice. Why don't you wait here while I go into the back room? And, you know, called the cops right away. So he was put on trial, luckily for him, in Italy, and got an extremely Short sentence. And was more or less a national hero.

[E]

And what happens to the Mona Lisa in the Louvre after that?

[B]

So the Mona Lisa hadn't actually been that famous before the theft in the inventories of the Louvre, when it was still a palace. We know at one point it was hung up in a bathroom. It was essentially a little decor you would look at while brushing your teeth.

[D]

That's comical.

[B]

And it's only after the theft that people are like, oh, this is. It's not even the only Leonardo da Vinci that the museum has, but it becomes very popular. And now you have to stand in line and you can hardly see it because it's behind always smeary bulletproof glass.

[D]

So it's possible that if this crown of the Empress Eugenie, the one with all the pearls and diamonds is found, it could suddenly become this major hit tourist attraction at the museum. Because it seems like once a stolen item goes back to a museum, it becomes the hit tourist thing.

[B]

Everybody's got to see just what the Louvre needs. Yet another tourist hit.

[D]

Well, Erin, the French government has been describing this theft as a great tragedy for the French nation, and that's the reports I've seen. It's really being seen as sort of a demoralizing moment of French national shame. I mean, what did you think of when you heard about this heist, I wonder?

[B]

When the moderne in Paris was hit in 2015, there was kind of an upsurge of support for the thief who was known as Spider man because of his skill in climbing into buildings. So I wonder if there are similar admiring French people of the ingenuity of these thieves.

[E]

Well, I have to say that if I were an art thief, I would want to have a good nickname, and I would say Spider man is a good nickname for an art thief, all the more so, because if you're French, do you know how you say Spider Man? You say Spider man, which sounds much better. Okay, Erin, what would be your nickname if you were an art thief? And don't tell me you've never thought about this.

[B]

I have never thought about that.

[E]

Oh, so disappointing.

[B]

I guess I would just be the professor, but in a sinister.

[D]

That Professor.

[E]

That's fantastic.

[C]

Aaron.

[D]

I will say that when we came in this morning, everyone on our show was obsessed with this story. It was the major headline, you know, that we thought from around the globe this weekend. And I want to get a sense from you as to why you think these sorts of stories capture people's imaginations.

[B]

It's tempting to touch art. Everybody wants to hold a masterpiece in their hands. And I think we're all a little jealous of thieves who get to do that much less. Maybe even put on the Empress Eugenie's pearl and diamond diadem. It's a little surprising to me that the story is so big because I know that museums are full of stolen objects that have been taken from colonized cultures around the world. So, yeah, the museum's both victims and perpetrators in the trade, and stolen are.

[E]

Okay.

[D]

Well, Erin, thank you so much. We so appreciate you taking so much time to speak with us.

[E]

Thank you, Erin. It was a total pleasure. Thank you so much.

[B]

Thanks for having me.

[D]

That was Erin Thompson, professor of Art Art Crime at City University of New York. If you've been enjoying our show, please take a moment to rate us. It helps other people find the show.

[E]

The producers today were Viv Jones, Aaron Keller, Valerio Esposito, and Cat Farnsworth. The executive producer was Annie Brown. It was engineered by Travis Evans. And our senior news editor is China Collins.

[D]

And folks, thank you all, as always, for listening. We'll talk to you again tomorrow.

[E]

Cheerio.

[B]

This is the story of the 1. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and.

[C]

Flu season, germs spread fast.

[B]

It's why he partners with Granger to stay focus, fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, all so that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRAINGER click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.