When’s the best time to pull off a robbery? Well, for the team of four who stole eight pieces of France’s crown jewels, the best time was in broad daylight on Sunday morning at the most visited museum in the world. But for another culprit across town, the golden window was that same Sunday while everyone else was distracted by that first heist. No joke, we’re just learning that mere hours after the Louvre break-in another theft went down at a French museum, the less-frequented Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot in Landres. Only instead of over $100 million worth of diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds, the theft at Maison des Lumières was of 2,000 gold and silver coins estimated to be worth $104,000. And instead of the museum becoming aware of the heist in real time, the theft at Maison des Lumières was not discovered until they opened… two days later. Le sigh.
Another museum in France has been the target of brazen thieves.
Approximately 2,000 gold and silver coins were stolen from Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot in Landres on Oct. 19, just hours after over $100 million worth of jewels were stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Workers arrived at the museum — dedicated to philosopher and encyclopedist Denis Diderot — on Oct. 21 when they noticed one of the display cases was smashed and raised the alarm, according to a statement to French media from local authority, per the BBC and USA Today.
According to The Sun, the break-in had actually occurred on Oct. 19 and went undetected for two days while the museum was closed.
The display case contained coins, dating between 1790 and 1840, that were discovered in 2011 during renovation at the museum. The stolen coins are worth approximately €90,000 (or $104,000). Authorities said in a public statement, per USA Today, that the robbery was conducted with “great expertise and precision.”
It’s undetermined if this theft is connected to the Louvre theft.
Just hours before the thieves quietly stole the historic coins, four chainsaw-wielding thieves broke into the Louvre Museum in Paris using a ladder boosted by a mechanical boom truck to force a window open at the famed museum and steal millions of dollars worth of jewelry.
I don’t know what in the Pepé Le Pew is going on over there in France, but it sure stinks! How can multiple institutions of art, heritage, and history be so insufficiently secured?! I know the final answer is money and funding, but come on! The museums of France are home to works of cultural significance to their country, Europe, and the world at large; it’d be nice to know they’re fortified enough so that criminals have to work much, much harder than these recent thieves had to. We’re talking about works of art that eluded capture from the most brazen heisters of all — the Nazis. To survive that scourge, only to be lifted by some Danny Océan wannabe? J’accuse!! (I know I’m not using that right, but the indignation translates correctly.) We don’t need Shakespeare on hand to point out that there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark France. What a monde.
But to conclude on a note of positivité, I do love that the (now missing) coins were unearthed at the museum during a renovation. A literal, not figurative, instance of sitting on a goldmine.
Photos credit: User Mossot via Wikipedia and via Instagram