Heist at the Louvre Episode 1: Inside the Glass Cases

Hi, I'm James Longman, ABC News Chief International Correspondent. I want to tell you about my new podcast, Heist at the Louvre. It's a thrilling new series from ABC Audio, and I really think it's unlike anything you've heard before. On October 19th, 2025, just about a year ago, the Louvre Museum was robbed. Now, a hundred million dollars worth of jewelry, which was once owned by French royalty, is missing, and the most famous museum in the world has become a crime scene. In this new series, I'll be looking into the investigation of the Heist, I'll be diving deep to explore the Parisian criminal underworld and the international hunt for the Crown Jules. Plus, I'm going to explore what this Heist has revealed about a museum and a nation known around the world for its priceless art. And we'll be sharing new episodes right here in the 2020 Feed Weekly on Fridays for the next few weeks. You can also listen early by searching for Heist at the Louvre on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can listen ad-free on Apple podcasts when you subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus. Click the link in the description to learn more. Now, here's episode one of Heist at the Louvre. For me, it all began with the film Mission Impossible. In the mid-90s, when that movie first came out, it was instantly burned into my brain. Now you might think Mission Impossible is a spy movie. But there's this moment where Tom Cruise kind of goes rogue. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. He breaks into a locked vault, he hacks into a CIA computer, and right then, it suddenly becomes my ultimate Heist movie, and that scene with the rope, and the light up floor, and the beat of sweat. Yeah, it's just as good today as it was then. Now, if you haven't seen it, you kind of don't need to. You know the Heist formula already. The good guys are the rebels, forced to steal, cheat, lie, and even kill. But all for the right reasons, and they look good doing it. Everyone has that one Heist movie they can watch over and over again and never get bored. From the Italian job, you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. Two Oceans 11 were just supposed to walk out of there with $150 billion in cash, without getting stopped. Yeah. Heist movies can be classic, emotional, violent, but in all of them, we get to live a little of our Robin Hood fantasies just for a couple of hours. But what if fantasy became an ugly reality? And urgent investigation is underway in Paris after a daring jewel heist at the Louvre earlier this morning. Authorities say three people made up. This story we're about to get into, it could have been a Hollywood screenplay. On October 19th, 2025, someone broke into the most famous museum in the world and stole some of the most famous jewels in the world. We're going to tell you how this Heist happened and track down some people closest to those suspected of being responsible. And we're joining the International Hunt for the Jewels, which takes us closer to home than you'd think. And we'll be exploring a whole world of heists from real life that might help us understand this one a little bit better. But even though this Heist could have been created by a Hollywood screenwriter, it was all too real for the people who were there that day. In this episode, we'll talk to the people who saw it all unfold in real time. Because while those characters in the back of the shot in Ocean's 11 ceased to exist after the cameras turned off, these people didn't, and what they experienced will stay with them for a long time. What they saw was a brazen heist carried out in one of the busiest museums in the world in broad daylight. From ABC Audio, I'm James Longman, and this is Heist at the Louvre. In episode one, inside the glass cases. As ABC News chief international correspondent, I travel a lot. War zones, international summits, sites of natural disasters, I have more stamps in my passport than I can count. And I've been to Paris many, many times. I go for work, but I was also raised in a French-speaking household. I've been surrounded by French culture for as long as I can remember, so for me, going to Paris kind of feels like going home. The lots of people, though, going to Paris is the trip of a lifetime. Hello. Hi, James. Hi. Hi, everyone. This is Jake and Holly Barker. Holly is a middle school Spanish teacher, and Jake is an environmental engineer. They live with their two dogs in Indianapolis, Indiana. How would you describe Indiana in one sentence? It's a great place to live if you love to travel. That's so funny. I've never heard it anywhere. I've described it like that. It's the best place to live if you want to leave quickly. You understood it exactly as I intended. Jake and Holly have been together for around 12 years, and it was Holly who gave Jake the travel bug. I really outkicked my coverage when I started dating and married Holly. She introduced me to this whole world of travel and having experiences that I never dreamed I would ever have, and so she's my best friend, and I get to explore this whole new world with her. Holly's family had taken her abroad when she was a kid, including to Paris, and last year Holly's 70-something-year-old parents decided they wanted to go to France again. They dreamed of visiting World War II historical sites, and they wanted company. And they asked if we would have any interest of going with them, and kind of being the shop around us essentially, driving them around. I hopped on board, and I said, "I will plan everything. I love to plan vacations and trips. I just love it." Holly planned a vacation for the four of them for the middle of October 2025. They would drive around Normandy, see the famous Morseau Michel, and at the end, Holly and Jake would have a few days in Paris just for them. Jake had never seen Paris before, so that's why I lauded like four days for the two of us to go do all the, you know, the Paris things. When they got there, they spent a few days working their way down a list of Paris must-do's. You know the kind of thing, a boat tour of the San River seeing the Eiffel Tower, and on their last full day, Sunday, October 19th, they planned to spend all day at a museum, the Louvre. Holly, again, was the one who figured it all out. I was like, "We are getting a 9am tour and booked on our little itinerary, you know, at least four to five hours there. I know you cannot see everything in the Louvre and one trip, another alone one day." So yeah, I was like, "Well, we'll do what we can in the four to five hours that I lauded for." Now, Holly's right, the Louvre is enormous. The main building has arranged around three sides of an interior courtyard where a large glass pyramid juts out of the ground. This pyramid now rivals the Eiffel Tower as a must-see, tourist photo opportunity, but it's also a skylight revealing that the museum stretches two stories underground. It's a Warren of galleries and escalators. The museum has been described as a city within a city, with nearly nine miles of exhibition rooms and 35,000 objects of art on display. Everything from Renaissance paintings to Stone Age carvings, it's got it all. According to their own figures, the Louvre had just under 9 million visitors in 2024. For comparison, the Metropolitan Museum in New York says they pulled in around six million visitors in 2025. On busy days at the Louvre, the lines can be so long that they extend out of the building and around that glass pyramid. One of the reasons the weight can be so long, security. Every visitor goes through a metal detector, big bags have to be left in lockers while you walk around. According to their 2024 report, over 1,000 security staff guard the Louvre 24 hours a day. Watch the entrances and galleries for visitors' suspicious behaviour. But on Sunday, October 19, as Jake and Holly arrived at the Louvre, neither they nor the security staff working that morning had any idea that a heist had already begun. I've been doing true crime 25 years or so. I thought I had seen everything until I encountered this story. I'm never going to forget it. These two boys stabbed this for all 30 times and are videoing their glee. Just killed Cassie. This is a real shocking piece of video. I just never seen anything like this. If you're okay with talking about it, why did you make that video? The Scream Murder, a troutine horror story, an all-new podcast coming October 6th, where you get your podcasts or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcast to listen early and add free term supply so what did your family think when you said you've got a job at the Louvre? I it was awful oh because yes yes because it was awful because my parents probably were dreaming something better for me this is Frederic Serriere he's part of the security team at the Louvre one of the many uniformed agents standing watch Frederics in his early 40s now and as far back as he can remember his parents were always taking him to museums and exhibitions they're both doctors they raised their kids with a knowledge of high culture and in fact Frederic studied history at the Sorbonne which is a prestigious Parisian university but I was a very very very bad student so that's why I didn't get any diploma around the time that Frederic was dropping out of the Sorbonne he had a friend working at the Louvre he helped Frederic find a job there just something temporary until he figured out his next steps Frederic became a security guard it was a 17 years before and I'm stupid on the morning of October 19th 2025 Frederic was working the opening shift I like working on Sundays because it's it's very peaceful Frederic's day starts long before the visitors arrive at the start of his shift he grabs his radio and keys and starts walking those hallowed halls he's alone but he's surrounded by famous faces the Venus de Milo a painted Napoleon on horseback in ancient Egyptians thinks it was an honor to walk in the in the museum in in the morning especially in the morning so you you you're walking alone you feel the the the weights of history on you when you're alone in the galleries of the museum when you're in the front of Mona Lisa alone in the in this room yes it's that's something that's I can see you're smiling why it's mild thinking about that because that's history talking to Frederic you can see how important the Louvre is to him even if he says his parents don't approve this is more than just a job I have a lot of sympathy for for the building because it's so familiar to me it's it's part of my family it's like an old grandmother yes exactly it is exactly Frederic used to be a gallery guard in the individual rooms where the author's displayed he says he likes watching the visitors seeing how different nationalities interact with the museum in different ways like the ground rooms that Napoleon used to live in it's the oh my god rooms because you can you can you can hear all the Americans say oh my god oh my god that's very funny that's very funny Frederic isn't mocking he loves it he loves the enthusiasm he loves to see people engaging with the building that he is so fond of he's not in the galleries anymore though he works at the entrance to the Louvre that same entrance that Holly and Jake arrived at that Sunday morning in October of 2025 we can place all three of them there just after 9am but by the time Jake and Holly got there it was quickly becoming less peaceful it went from three people standing in line quiet I got a picture or each got a picture in front of the pyramid you know by ourselves no one else and then the line that just started wrapping around so it was it was buzzing at that entrance I mean there were just masses of people so it was Sunday it was raining in Paris on that particular morning it was a perfect morning for visiting the museum still thanks to Holly's organizing they got through security in a matter of minutes and once they got inside Jake says they had their route all figured out from where they entered under the pyramid they plan to turn south heading up two flights of stairs until they reached the second floor they were headed for the Denon wing where some of the most famous works of art live in adjoining rooms and Jake wants people to know he had been doing some research for the trip too I don't just sit around here on my hands all day you know what I mean he'd been listening to a podcast made by a local tour guide about what to do in Paris and he had a few episodes about the Apollo room specifically at the Louvre and that was that's what I was most excited about so really exactly yeah because that is not normally what people are most excited about yeah it's time to talk about the most famous item in the most famous museum in the world a portrait of a woman not much bigger than a kitchen cutting board as Jake and Holly entered the Denon wing they arrived at the Louvre's largest gallery where she lives how they had been to the Louvre she'd seen the Mona Lisa and the whole time she's like you're gonna you're not gonna be impressed yeah I mean it's impressive but like everybody it's not nearly as big you know as people make it out to be yeah but that's we're joking a little bit because obviously the first place we stopped was the Mona Lisa 80% of the visitors of the Louvre want to see the Mona Lisa and that's you've looked very upset about that yes yes the whole body has just shrunk the mention of the Mona Lisa yes because no the problem is it's it creates how can you say that in English aren't is it cute about this is unbalanced yes exactly because of the number of visitors the security of the Mona Lisa compared to the rest of the Louvre is also unbalanced she's a target for environmental activists terrorists and thieves she's guarded by climate control glass tiny sensors monitor any movement of her frame thousands of visitors crowd her room but can't get too close multiple cameras watch for anyone who breaches the barrier that surrounds her she is in some ways a perfect diversion everyone watches her while other parts of the museum are far less noticed holly and jake grabbed a quick selfie in front of the portrait but were eager to get to their planned destination just a short distance away they moved away from the Mona Lisa room through a gallery and up a grand staircase guarded by the wing statue of samathras a two thousand year old marble figure bathed in light from a window above within minutes they were at the entrance to the Apollo gallery jake kept saying like if we can't go to Versailles we have to go to this room because it's supposed to be like he called it like a mark many Versailles did it live up to expectation oh yeah i mean it is absolutely stunning of a room the Apollo gallery is long and narrow and sits in total contrast with the Mona Lisa room in several ways for one it attracts a fraction of the visitors for another there are far fewer security measures but the decor that's what really sets it apart 400 years ago it was designed to show off the wealth and power of France it still does every surface of the walls and ceilings are either covered in shiny gold leaf or panelled in the kind of murals you might see in the cysteine chapel it's gorgeous it's as gorgeous room full of yeah these glass cases right like anything in a glass case is special and so this room is just lined with glass cases inside each of those glass cases were jewels diamonds sapphires emeralds arranged in different ornate jewelry pieces many were owned by french royalty and even in a room made of gold these jewels cannot be upstaged there was just one problem it is in the front of the center river with five or seven windows in the in the front of the street yes that's that's a bad choice yes of course the room that held some of the most precious jewels in France faces a busy street and it has big windows when holly and jay carive shortly after 9 30 in the morning they began making their way along the display cases running down the center line of the room and at nine thirty two i'm at the very front glass case staring at this teapot with a horse unicorn mermaid body kind of thing jewels and i'm i'm going to take a picture of it and i'm trying to get holly to like come look at this silly like teapot thing and she's already looking at the crown jewels which are in the middle of the room yeah i'm halfway down by now when do you notice something's up so i'm looking at the the green emerald necklace i remember holly's talking [BLANK_AUDIO] necklace from the 1800s that once belonged to Napoleon's wife, it's dripping with ten huge green gems. It is beautiful. But Holley's gaze was interrupted. I hear these bangs and my first instinct is it's got to be construction. So I look kind of in the direction of where the noise came from and it's down the end of the room and it looked like the windows. It looked like they were kind of starting to be like a shoved open, like forcefully. And that's when during those bangs, I think on like by the third one, I'm kind of looking around like, where's Jake? Then like after those three bangs, it was the saw sound. And that's when it was just like, I don't think this is construction. When I heard that saw, I knew nothing good was going to come from that. I wasn't sure if somebody at that point was trying to bust out of the Apollo room or bust in. But I knew that it wasn't well-intentioned and I knew if we didn't act fast and leave that it would not be in our best interest. According to investigators at 9.30am, thieves arrived on the busy street outside the Apollo Gallery in a flatbed truck. On the back was a furniture lift. It kind of looks like a motorized ladder. Investigators say that after parking outside, the thieves used the lift to go up to the second floor window and began trying to break in. Holly told me she remembered that there was a security guard in the Apollo Gallery. And that as the banging noise continued, she saw that security guard run down the length of the room toward the windows where the noise was coming from. She knew something that this was not construction. And so when she ran that way, that's when I started to double back. Holly went to find Jake, who was standing closer to the entrance of the room, still next to the jewel encrusted teapot. We immediately came together, grasped hands and kind of waited for instruction. Jake and Holly think there were around 15 people inside the gallery at that moment. No one seemed to know what was happening, but a horrible thought crossed Jake's mind. I thought that it was probably a terrorist attack and I know that's sad and I think it's very American of us to jump to that conclusion. We were waiting for the gunshots. That's what we were thinking was once the gunshots start happening, how do we get out of here? Holly and Jake didn't stay to find out, so they didn't see what investigators later described. Two men standing on the balcony outside the gallery windows using an angle grinder to cut into the glass. And those men, according to authorities, would soon be inside within moments the security staff in the gallery put a call out over the radio. And in English, it's urgent, insurgent, it's in the Apollo gallery, somebody's trying to get into the gallery from the window. Frederick said that like Holly and Jake, many of his colleagues also assumed it was a terrorist attack, but not Frederick. They'd recently been a theft at the science museum in Paris. And for some reason, it had been playing on his mind just the day before. And I was thinking, yes, it's possible. It's possible to happen in the loop, so I have to be ready for that psychologically. Psychologically, he was. When the call came over the radio, somehow Frederick knew exactly what to do. When I heard that, I, I want. I have never run. You ran. Oh, yes, yes, I run. It's important to say here, Frederick has no weapons, security guards at the Louvre are unarmed. Now he's a big guy, tall and serious looking, but he's more of a gentle giant. And he told me he is always watching for security lapses, but a lot of what he does is just help tourists. Welcome them in, find their spouses who've gone lost in the galleries. And he says there's an order of what guards are supposed to protect in situations like this. Visitors and staff first, building and the art, only if they can. Really, we are not, we are not police officers. We are. And yet you felt this kind of urge to go towards it. Why? I think it was my duty. Frederick didn't run towards the Apollo gallery. He ran towards where the thieves had come from outside the windows. But remember, the Louvre is huge. To get from where he was to the street outside the Apollo gallery, Frederick ran about a quarter of a mile. All he had on him was his flashlight, which he thought could come in handy if he needed to defend himself and his phone. Maybe I won't stop the thieves, but I will have to to take a photo of them for the investigate minutes later. But I was too late. The thieves had entered the gallery at 9.34am. By the time the radio call went out, and Frederick had raced around to the street, it was 9.38, and they were already gone. All that was left were the devastating after effects of the biggest heist that had ever happened at the Louvre. Between the call going out over the radio and Frederick's arrival outside the gallery windows, a lot had happened. According to investigators, the thieves entered the gallery and used their angle grinders to cut into the glass display cases. Authorities said they managed to grab 9 pieces of Napoleonic era jewellery, and investigators would later place the value of what was stolen at over $100 million. By the time Frederick arrived, he said he saw the truck and the ladder still extended to walled the gallery windows, but the thieves were gone. I don't know like 10 seconds to late. The entire thing from beginning to end took 7 minutes. Authorities said that after leaving the gallery through the same window they'd arrived through, the thieves had shimmied back down to the street and escaped on motorised scooters. The act was clearly premeditated and it seemed like everything had gone according to plan. Almost everything. They'd left in a hurry. They had left everything, the tools, their helmets, everything. And that wasn't all. Frederick says the thieves had poured gasoline all over the furniture lift. Was feeling a little bit dizzy as a sign because yes, it was very, very a strong smell, a very strong smell. The thieves had likely intended to set fire to the furniture lift, according to investigators, along with all the other equipment, but they were seemingly interrupted by the arrival of Louvre staff. If they'd been successful, it could have made a bad day even worse. Frederick told me the Apollo gallery is made of wood. If the thieves had flung a lit match, the entire room could have caught the blaze. Instead, the thieves had left behind crucial clues for investigators. Because of the quick thinking of Frederick's colleagues, there was something to look for, fingerprints and DNA. Police arrived moments after Frederick did. Sirens blared. Frederick stood on the street trying to stop members of the public getting too close to the crime scene. When something caught his eye. On the pavements, I saw something shiny. That shiny object was in a lightwell, below street level, and Frederick took a closer look. I realized that it was a piece of jewelry. Wasn't just any piece of jewelry. It was a crown once worn by Princess Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III. Incrusted with over a thousand diamonds and eight solid gold eagles, the crown was lying crushed and deformed in the corner of a Parisian sidewalk. It seemed that the thieves had dropped it on the way down from the balcony. It meant that investigators were now looking for eight items stolen from the Apollo gallery by thieves who seemed like they knew exactly what they had gone there to steal. The crown jewels of France. Now this is where the movie normally ends. We cut to our handsome heisters on the motorbikes, speeding away from the Parisian police, the sirens fade, the guy gets the girl and the credits roll. But what we call a heist in a movie has another name, theft. Heists are exciting, thrilling, made for the screen. The theft has lasting consequences. Holly and Jake Barker aren't at all. factors, and the day wasn't nearly over for them. While the investigators began to piece together what had happened outside, Holly and Jake were trapped inside, not knowing what exactly they just witnessed. They watched as panic spread through the crowded halls. I tend to freak out easily on things, and not, like again, just waiting for that sound of a gunshot when not quite sure what was going on, where to go. And also just the like 15 people in that room are running. But then when you get out of the Apollo room and into like another little area, now hundreds of people are running. There was nowhere to go, and over an hour later, Holly and Jake said they still hadn't been told anything apart from to stay where they were. At around 11am, Jake said he spotted something, an open door, and other tourists escaping through it. They joined a crowd that was pushing out into the museum courtyard, not knowing if they were supposed to or not. As they left, they overheard some American tourists talking about a robbery in the Apollo gallery, and that was how they learned that the crown jewels had been stolen. And soon, that news would spread all over the world. Crowns, necklaces, earrings, and more estimated to be worth more than $100 million, we have learned a short time ago that officials did recover one piece. Investigators say they're still trying to determine if a source be inside one of the world's pieces, tracing the journey of the thieves from the moment they left the Louvre. I said, how in the world did the thieves get into these cases, and he said, what was easy? And the hunt for what they took with them, some of the most dazzling pieces of jewelry in the Western world. And later, we'll find out what happened inside the gallery from the perspective of one of the suspected thieves. Is there anything you think your client, if he was here now, what would he like us to know? Believe me, I guess. Heist at the Louvre is a production of ABC Audio, hosted by me, James Longman, produced by Madeline Wood, Emily Schutz, and Aisha Elhamar Castano. Edited by Nora Richie, our supervising producer is Susie Lou, mixing by Evan Viola. Thanks to Katie Dendas, John Capitaneas, Indra Delay Sahan, Iman Varroqua, Michelle Margulis, and Cezanda Canto. Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming, Aemon McNiff is our executive producer.