Men wielding disc cutters rode up to the heavily guarded Louvre Museum in Paris on a scooter, stole priceless jewellery and left in seven minutes – less time than it takes to finish a portion of French fries.
The museum, which is the world’s most visited and is home to the Mona Lisa, was shut on Sunday morning (French time) after the robbery.
While news agency AFP reported the heist was carried out between 9.30 and 9.40 am, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez gave an even shorter timeline of just seven minutes.
“Individuals entered from outside with a cherry picker (a kind of hydraulic ladder) and stole priceless jewellery” in an incident that “lasted seven minutes”, the minister was quoted as saying by French outlet Le Parisien.
Nunez said three or four men carried out the heist and they had focused on two displays in Gallerie d’Apollon (Apollo’s Gallery). It was “manifestly a team that had done scouting,” the minister said, adding that the panes were cut “with a disc cutter.
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