Thieves used an extendable ladder and motorbikes to steal eight precious items from Apollo’s Gallery at the Paris museum.
The Louvre Museum in the French capital has closed for “exceptional reasons” after a group of intruders successfully stole eight pieces of priceless jewellery in a quick-hit heist that has rocked the world’s most-visited museum.
A manhunt for the thieves was under way in Paris on Sunday as police cordoned off the museum – famously home to Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Mona Lisa – with tape and as armed soldiers patrolled its iconic glass pyramid entrance.
French government and museum officials said several intruders entered the Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo’s Gallery) through a window shortly after the museum opened, relying on a lift used to hoist furniture into buildings.
Within just four minutes, the thieves stole away on motorcycles laden with eight items dating back to the Napoleonic era, dropping a ninth on their way out.
French President Emmanuel Macron took to social media to denounce the heist as an “attack on a heritage that we cher
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