Heist at the Louvre Episode 4: Diamonds Are Forever

Hi, this is James Longman, here with the final episode of our four-part series, Heist at the Louvre. If you haven't heard the rest of the series, it's the perfect time to go back and listen. And you can do that right here, or 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 the finale. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at BJ's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the Save. Okay, imagine you're one of the Louvre thieves for a moment. Back on October 19th of 2025. You've just stolen a hundred million dollars worth of crown jewels. In a little bag, you've got emeralds and sapphires and thousands of diamonds. You're on motorized scooters fleeing the scene. The sirens behind you are growing more and more faint. And it's not yet 10am on a quiet Sunday morning. Where do you go? Six days passed between the heist and the first arrest. We leave plenty of time for the thieves to get to the diamond capital of the world. Paris and Antwerp is not that far from each other. There are certainly contacts, the language. This is Ahim de Braca, former commissioner of Antwerp's federal judicial police. I met him in the diamond district of Antwerp. It's a city with about the same population as Milwaukee and it's in the north of Belgium. So everything is located in this square mile. It's a whole world, isn't it? We were on Hovenestradt, a long narrow street with grey buildings on either side. It doesn't really look like much until you notice all the CCTV cameras, the private security guards and the police patrolling everywhere. We are right in the center of the diamond world. And it's a stone's throw from the main train station where there is a direct train from Paris, every hour. Is there a chance that they come through Antwerp? At a certain point, yes. Probably not immediately. All around us were shops and offices with a similar logo, a silhouette of a diamond. If someone wanted to sell the French crown jewels, this would be a pretty good and incredibly convenient place to do it. The whole supply chain of the industry is here. Raw, uncut diamonds, freshly mined, arrive daily to be shaped and faceted. Antique diamonds are sent here to be repolished. And then just around the corner are jeweler's shops with big windows. So here you actually see the final product, the rings, the necklaces. Ahim spent his career investigating the dark side of this industry. Theft, illegal trading, money laundering. Beneath the surface of this bustling market, there are secrets to investigate. And that is why I came here. Why? How does someone get rid of a hundred million dollars worth of jewels without being noticed? Assuming, of course, that they want to get rid of them at all. In this episode, the journey of the jewels, where they've gone and who might have them. And if the police can't find them, then a very special expert might get a call. From ABC Audio, this is Heist at the Lourdes. Episode 4, Diamonds Are Forever. Now, before we dive into the seedy underworld of illicit diamond sales, there is one theory that we haven't talked about yet, and I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't give it just a little airtime. It's the private collector theory, or as I like to call it, the Dr. No theory. In this scenario, the jewels don't get sold. Let me explain. Dr. No was the first ever James Bond film back in 1962. Sean Connery is Bond and it's all set on a remote island. And by the way, it is the first movie where we get to hear Bond's iconic drink order. Dry martini, lemon peel, shaken, not stirred. Vodka? Of course. Now, the moment that everyone talks about and the reason for this theory is towards the end of the movie. So we're gearing up for the big showdown fight and the villain, Dr. No, has forced James Bond down into his secret underground lair for cocktails and chit-chat. You won't get away with it this time, Dr. No. The Americans are prepared for any trouble. I never fail, Mr. Bond. As Bond and Dr. No walk through this opulent criminal hideout, a painting catches Bond's eye. He pauses for a moment, looks at it, raises his eyebrows in mild surprise, and keeps walking. He was looking at a portrait of the Duke of Wellington, which was painted by Francisco Goya. And this subtle moment, this is a total Easter egg for viewers. Because the real Goya portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen the year before this movie came out. In 1961, someone had taken it from the wall of the National Gallery in London. So seeing it in Dr. No's lair is like a fun inside joke for anybody who knew about that theft. like Dr. No had been behind it all along. The painting was recovered a few years after this movie was released, but the idea that Dr. No types are out there collecting the treasures of the world for their personal enjoyment in underground bunkers, well, that idea stuck. That's why, after the Louvre heist, experts I spoke to kept telling me about this theory that the thieves had stolen the jewellery for a collector, maybe some kind of Napoleon aficionado, someone who'd wanted the jewellery all to themselves. And I have to be honest, this is my favourite theory. It's the one that I believe, or at least want to believe the most. But Ahim de Braca isn't convinced. I'm not very, how can I say, I don't believe in that option because imagine that you are. He says the way the heist happened, the smash and grab of it all, fits more with the MO of a criminal gang. He thinks the theft wasn't about a Napoleon-obsessed collector. It was about money. He thinks that whoever has the jewels will likely lay low for a while and then try to sell them. Then the difficult part of their work is going to start now because that is not so easy. Now, if it is about money, it would make more sense to sell the jewels on the legitimate market. They're obviously worth much more there. But as you might expect, that market is governed by some pretty strict guidelines. Only officially registered companies are allowed to operate in the diamond district. And a diamond industry official I spoke to here told me that every diamond has individual paperwork. Think of it a little bit like a passport. She said each jewel is meticulously checked. She thought it was almost impossible for the stolen Louvre jewels to find their way back into the legal supply chain here. Ahim says it is absolutely possible. Eventually, if you want to certify your stones, if you want to repolish those stones, you need specialists to polish them. And those specialists you will still find here in Antwerp. Polishing is the term in the industry for shaving off the top layer of a diamond's surface and reshaping it. It restores the jewel's shine and brilliance. But the problem is, as soon as you need polishers, as soon as you need middlemen, As soon as you need extra people to help you, to facilitate you, to make sure that you can sell these stones, that are all weak points. Ahim says that if the thieves came to Antwerp to sell these stones, they would need contacts that they could trust. People who might know exactly where these jewels come from, but don't care. The diamond industry doesn't have a very good reputation for whistleblowing and pointing out people who are engaging in that kind of behaviour. This is Alan Martin. He's the head of responsible sourcing at the London Bullion Market Association in Canada. He says the thieves, or a supposed mastermind, would have known in advance who might be willing to help them. They would know who would be, you know, ready to ask less questions. He said that finding someone like that in Antwerp, or even in France, wouldn't actually be that hard. And he said that if these jewels are sold on, they'd be unlikely to stay in their original settings in necklaces or tiaras. I mean, I had a bike stolen a few years ago during COVID and the cops eventually called me and said, oh, we found your bike. I got really excited and I thought, oh, let's get my bike back. And then when I went to the pound to get it, it was literally just like it was a frame. because of the supply chain issues of during the pandemic that selling my gears and brakes and whatever else was actually more lucrative than selling the whole bike. So I think that probably the same thing that would be happening with the diamonds. To me at least, it's kind of a horrible thought that these items that played such a role in French history, however small, might be broken apart. I think that's probably why I like the doctor no theory so much. If a Bond villain collector is behind all this, at least it means the jewels stay together. The thing is, you're going to realise that the criminals don't have any sentimentality about these being Napoleon's jewellery. They really don't give a ****. It's like, am I going to get paid or not? The jewels, if sold in the legitimate market, Alan says, would need to be unrecognisable. They might even be remade into new jewellery. And this idea really blows my mind. There's every chance that they could end up in jewellery in a neighbourhood store near you. Let's take, for example, the brooch that was taken. It had two and a half thousand diamonds on it. Eventually, those individual diamonds could end up in rings like this. And that is it. I mean, if you look at how many. In Antwerp, as I stood in the heart of the diamond district, I noticed that all around us on the street were men in suits carrying briefcases and boxes moving from one building to another. It seemed very likely that these men were part of the trade of precious jewels, transporting them from one stage of the process to the next. There's every chance that a box like that could be coming down this street with the French crown jewels in it, ready to go into one of these buildings for repolishing, recutting. And then shipped all over the world. And then they're lost. And then they're lost forever. Now, as far as we know, the jewels could all already be sold. They could be long gone. Two of the suspects in custody reportedly say they don't know where the jewels are and that they were last seen in the hands of the man who they say ordered the whole thing. But that's where another theory comes into play. The Pink Panther theory. This story is sponsored by Vinted. It's officially fall, and it seems like everywhere you look, everybody's wearing adorable fall sweaters. And you might be ready to start shopping for your own fall wardrobe. But when your closet is already full of spring and summer styles and clothes from years past that you don't wear anymore, it's hard to find the space for them. That's where Vinted comes in. Vinted is a free-to-download app that makes it easy for anybody to sell their pre-loved fashion and make a little extra cash. It's a great way to save money. It's a great way to give a new life to old clothes you don't wear anymore. That vintage sweater you used to love might be exactly what somebody else is looking for. And by connecting your clothes to somebody who will appreciate them, you're doing the right thing for the earth and keeping them out of the landfill. Listing your pieces is easy and convenient. And once all your items sell, Vinted will create a shipping label for you. All you need to do is walk it to the post office. Plus, there are no seller fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. Give your clothes a new life with Vinted. Download the Vinted app today to start listing your clothing now with no fees. That's V-I-N-T-E-D. Support comes from WISE, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. You're fed up with losing out the hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank? Choose the smart way, WISE. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling. Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get WISE. Download the WISE app now. T's and C's apply. Today, I want to tell you about our friends at Layla Sleep. We cover a lot of difficult stories on this show, some that might make it hard to sleep at night. But Layla makes one of the best mattresses on the market and also one of the most affordable. Its innovative, flippable design offers something for everyone. There's a soft side and a firm side, so you can choose your preferred experience. It's infused with copper, which offers a cooler, cleaner night's sleep. And with motion isolation and pressure relief, you can count on being able to sleep through the night. No 2 a.m. wake-ups because your partner got up for a drink of water. There are two mattresses to choose from, hybrid or memory foam. Both are ultra-comfortable, and with our unique deal, they come at an unbelievably good price. If you're ready to take your sleep to the next level, head to abcsecretsavings.com slash 2020 to get free shipping and free shipping. 40% off. With that discount, you can get the hybrid mattress starting under $700 or the memory foam mattress for under $400. Considering that a good night's sleep is priceless, you can't ask for a better deal. But don't wait. This discount is only good for a limited time. Head to abcsecretsavings.com slash 2020 and start sleeping easier today. That's abcsecretsavings.com slash 2020. Right now, four suspects are sitting in jail, and you'd think police have them right where they want them. Well, not exactly. Because if the thieves haven't given any more information than what we saw from their reported interviews with investigators, then there's a lot we still might not know. Like if a mastermind did order the heist at the Louvre, who are they? And where are they now? In my reporting, I've heard from lots of different people. And you know what? A lot of them have the same theory about who they think is really pulling the strings behind the scenes. Now, when you think of a syndicate or group of people that get together and do a lot of jobs, you think of maybe the Pink Panthers. Pink Panthers, totally their mode opératoire. Crazy, butched, Pink Panther caper. Now, you might not have heard of the Pink Panthers, but they're a notorious gang of bandits who are responsible for hundreds of jewel thefts in 20 countries. And it was a stunt from one of their early thefts that gave the inspiration for their name. In a 1975 detective movie called The Return of the Pink Panther, a large diamond is stolen and it's hidden away in a jar of face cream. It's that cold cream the kind your grandma might have worn overnight. Even if you haven't seen the movie, I'm pretty sure you'll know the theme song. Decades after that movie came out, in the early 2000s, a gang pulled off a heist on a jewellery shop in London. They stole a huge diamond. And what did they do with it? They hid it in a jar of cold cream. It didn't take long for people to rename those thieves the Pink Panthers, and they've been called that ever since. Now, a lot of their heists are pure cinema. Disguises, guns, speedboat getaways. They've developed a reputation as the most prolific gang of jewel thieves. But they're not the only ones who have been called that. They've been called the Pink Panthers, but the origins of this group aren't in Hollywood. They come from the Balkan states of Eastern Europe. Exactly where, according to reports in French media, the suspect we're calling Motorbike claimed the mastermind was from. And the idea of these prolific jewel thieves being somehow connected to the case is interesting. So I went back to the experts to find out what they thought. Do you know about the Pink Panthers? Yeah. Remember, Alain Bauer, the only criminology professor in France? Do you think they could have done this? No. No, no. They are proficient, really. I think they are extremely annoyed not to have think about it. Because it looked so easy. Yeah. So I think they are pissed off not to have done it. Alain wasn't the only one who thought the heist didn't have the Pink Panthers signature style. Back in November 2025, the Paris prosecutor said that investigators believed the law of heist was a work of what they called petty criminals, not some organised crime syndicate. You know, reality is less interesting than Hollywood. Tim Carpenter, former FBI. Most art crimes are committed by untrained amateurish thieves that get. It's mostly a crime of opportunity, right? They stumble across an opportunity and they try to exploit it. And Tim says that having a suspect in custody doesn't guarantee that they'll lead you to the stolen art. Far from it, actually. I worked a case years ago down in Miami. I won't get into details of that case. But let's just suffice to say that we, you know, we encountered the subject. We detained him. This guy was accused of stealing a painting. And Tim felt good about the evidence they had against him. So when they brought him in, he got right to the point. You know, I was having a conversation with him. Look, I just really want to know where the painting is. Just tell me where the painting is. And he smiled at me and said, he asked me if I knew how much the painting was worth. Tim knew it was around a million dollars. Tim said the guy just smiled and said, then why would I tell you where it is? He's like, just put me in jail. I'll be out. And then I've got this million dollar painting. Then what do you do with that, right? You just look at him and say, well, OK, best of luck to you. Tim says this is actually pretty common. People willing to just go to jail and wait it out, hoping that when they get released, a payday is waiting for them. That's that set of scales where they're trying to wait. Does it make sense to cooperate and return it? Or am I better off sitting on it, you know, for a decade, hoping everybody forgets about it? Tim says that the reason they're prepared to wait is because prison sentences for stealing from museums aren't very long in France or the United States. When I spoke to Alain Bauer, our French criminologist, he predicted that the L'Ouvre Heisters are likely looking at six to eight years in jail if, they're convicted. If the jewels are never found, that's a pretty good rate of return, just a few years in prison for a share in a $100 million haul. That's why, for an investigator like Tim, the hope is that he can find the stolen art before the day of release. We don't stop looking, right? That's one of the flaws in their logic, is they think, well, the heat's going to die off and nobody's going to be looking. No, no, we keep looking. So best of luck to you. It'll surface eventually and we'll get you then. Now, with a closed investigation, all these theories, Dr. No, Pink Panthers, they're just that, theories. Investigators haven't released any new information about where they think the jewels might be. And Tim does say that the French police might still be keeping an ace up their sleeve. Maybe the police have already recovered those jewels and just haven't told any of you about it because it's part of their investigative strategy. Eventually, these suspected thieves will face trial. And when they do, we may learn a lot more. Maybe my Dr. No theory will turn out to be right after all. But if we don't know where the jewels are by then, it might be time to call in the art detective. Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. I coach football. Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork. And BJ's knows savings. This is your home, Coach. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop. With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird. Okay, one judgment. Anyway, give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Fall never arrives all at once. First the air, then the light. Slowly the things you love begin to find each other. A jacket meets a dress. A hoodie slips beneath a blazer. An old cap finds a new scarf. Because you don't simply step into the season. You create it layer by layer until it finally feels like fall. Find fall your way at Ross. Welcome to the last chapter of our story. The what if. Because now we ask, what if the jewels don't resurface? What if years pass and there's no more leads left to follow? What then? I think that I'm pretty good in what I do. It's not because I'm so talented or extremely intelligent. It's just because I'm stubborn and I keep on going, you know. This is Arthur Brand. He investigates cases where the trail has gone cold. People call Arthur the Indiana Jones of the art world. He's not so sure. What's the name of the actor? Harrison Ford. He is nice looking, you know. I'm average probably. So I'm just a normal guy who tried to track down stolen art. He's recovered stolen paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso, Salvador Dali and a lot more besides. As a matter of fact, I have in the room next to me, I have a painting which was stolen in World War II. Everybody thinks it has been destroyed. There are only black and white pictures existing, and I have it here in colour, you know, in my room, the real piece. For now, Arthur says he isn't involved in the lawful case, but that might change. If they don't confess where the stuff is, then I might get a call from the French saying, Arthur, as you know, we are still looking for these diamonds. If you hear anything, let us know. Now, this art detective stuff isn't actually what he does for a living. His day job is advising clients about what art to buy. The rest of it is just a hobby. And it can be a dangerous one. Take organised crime bosses, add millions of dollars worth of stolen art and a dash of paranoia. That is a dangerous cocktail. When a heist happens, Arthur says he usually knows about it pretty quickly. And then he gets to work. First, the police calls me and says, Arthur, there has been this museum heist this night. Let's go for it. You do your job. We do our job. And then I start to call my informants. These informants are contacts he's gathered over the years. Relationships he's developed with some pretty scary people. Arthur's web of informants helps him span two very different worlds. There's the official side of things, working with police, feeding them information. And then there's the unofficial, filled with criminal gangs, mafia bosses and masterminds. Arthur. Arthur is the link between them. And he can cover a lot of ground that police can't. I know a lot of criminals and some of them, they know each other. So if I have a lead, then I go to other criminals and I ask them, do you know this guy? And if you know him, tell him I want to talk to him. And always after a couple of days, I get a call from that particular person telling, what's up? And then the game begins. The game, as Arthur describes it, sounds more like whack-a-mole. When a lead pops up, there's this brief window where a priceless, totally unique piece of art or historical artefact reappears. And he has to chase it down before it disappears again. And it's not just hardened criminals who reach out. Now that he has a reputation for his work, all sorts of people call him up. Most of the people who call me are, and I'm sorry to say this, but are ex-wives and ex-girlfriends. A few weeks ago, I got these pictures of a stolen painting hanging somewhere on a wall. And I asked this woman, where is it? And she gave me the address. And I said, are you sure? And she said, yes, because that's the house of my ex-husband. The more people that divorce, Arthur says, the better it is for solving art crimes. Arthur says he never speaks to the person who actually did the stealing. It's always someone further along the chain who, suddenly realises what they have. Maybe they got it in a swap for some drugs or as collateral in some other deal. They get stuck with it. So when I approach them and I tell them, look, I know you have this piece of art. And I think it's better you give it back. Sometimes you see this look in their eyes thinking, shall we shoot him? But they never do because I'm not a real threat. So as long as I'm not too annoying, I keep being alive. That one conversation with Arthur can change everything. The problem is the amount of time it takes for Arthur to get this one call. It could be a year. It could be 10. Maybe the jewels are stashed away. Maybe they've been found. Or maybe they're working their way through the legal jewellery market as we speak. One day ending up on the third finger of someone's left hand as a token of undying love. We don't know yet. My deepest hope is that these jewels are recovered intact and are brought back to Paris and that we can go back and see them. For Jake Barker, who was inside the Apollo Gallery with his wife Holly when the heist began, he says he's still dreaming of seeing the jewels up close. That I can pick up where I left off on that rainy Sunday. At 9.34 in the Apollo room. Starting with that silly teapot and then moving on to the rest of the jewels. We'll go back. Jake's dream seems unlikely to happen. At the end of July, the Apollo Gallery reopened to the public. After nine months, tourists streamed back into the impressive golden room. But it is very different now. It is completely empty. I'm glad we're back in the Apollo Gallery. The new Louvre director, Christophe Leribaud, gave a tour to some members of the press. He told them that the reason he hoped that people would visit the gallery now was just to enjoy the space. He said that leaving the room empty was an opportunity for visitors to rediscover the splendid architecture of the gallery. The Louvre director said he planned to create a dedicated "secure room" to store them. But that that would take a little time. You know what a dedicated "secure room" sounds like to me? That sounds like a vault. And perhaps with good reason. Because the Louvre heist wasn't an anomaly. It was actually part of a trend. Museum theft is up. In fact, even while we were writing this series in the early autumn of 2026, The Renoir Museum in France broken into and paintings stolen. Arthur Brand says it's even worse when it comes to jewels, silver and gold. What we see in the last 10 years is a change. Before that, they stole paintings. In the last 10 years, we see a shift to precious metals, which is sad because you can easily get rid of it, you know, without leaving a trace. A month before the Louvre heist, someone stole golden nuggets from the French Natural History Museum. On the same day as the Louvre theft, someone stole a hoard of gold and silver coins from an historical museum 300 kilometres away. So it's like copycats, you know. So I was very down when I heard that the Louvre was targeted because if thieves start to target the Louvre, maybe the most famous museum in the world, where does it stop? I know that these cases are important. I know that this trend is bad, people should not steal, but we're surrounded by so much bad news, so much negativity. There's something about a heist story that you can enjoy in a weird way. Do you have a favourite heist movie? That's a good question. This is something I wanted to ask our Louvre security guard, Frédéric Serrier, about. The thing is about heist movies is that they're always done from the perspective of the robbers, which means that you want the heist to work. The audience wants the heist to succeed. We watch Ocean's Eleven or any of these other movies, and we don't want the good guys to win. Yes, exactly. So much of the Robin Hood fantasy is about the characters. It's about the people who hold the power. Kings, governments, giant casino bosses. Most of us struggle, to identify with them. Then there's the people without the power. The thieves become an example. They prove that any of us can overcome our circumstances. Someone from a working-class neighbourhood on the edge of Paris can steal France's crown jewels. Somehow, even though we know it's wrong, it kind of makes the world feel more fair. How do you feel about people around the world watching this, and some of them, the sentiment, and I was reporting on it, that good for them, good for the little guy. They've taken something, and they've beat the system. I'm not sure you can say that, because, I mean, they're not good thieves or bad thieves. They're just thieves. Frédéric says it's not really about who the thieves are. It's what they did that matters. The Louvre is the national patrimony. It's the property of the people, but not only the French people. It's the property of humanity. So, yes, it's a shame to steal from the property of everybody in the world. For Frédéric, the Louvre is not a bank. It's not a big Las Vegas casino. And when the thieves broke into the display cases that day, they weren't stealing the Kings' crown jewels. They were stealing the Kings' jewels. They were taking a piece of our shared history and culture. They robbed us. And now, we all might be robbed again, because the treasures of the world may need to be hidden away for their own protection. I know the perfect museum. The perfect museum is a safe. If you don't want anything to be stolen, you put everything in a safe, and that's it. I'll be watching for updates in this story, and we'll be following along with the suspects' trials to see if their days in court reveal any new information. In the meantime, if you hear anything, let me know, won't you? Heist at the Louvre is a production of ABC Audio, hosted by me, James Longman. Produced by Madeleine Wood, Emily Schutz, and Aisha Elhamar Castano. Edited by Nora Ritchie. Our supervising producer is Susie Liu. Mixing by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Katie Dendas, John Capitaneus, Indra Dele Sahan, Iman Varokwa, Michelle Margulis, and Suzanne D'Acunto. Josh Kohan is our Director of Podcast Programming. Riff is our Executive Producer. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk. Crazy weather we're having. No, it's not. It's just weather. It is an introvert's dream. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan. $15 per month equivalent required. New customer offer first three months only. Then full price plan options available. See mintmobile.com. And slowly the things you love begin to find each other. Find fall your way at Ross.