You’ve got to have sympathy with the Director of the Louvre Museum – Laurence des Cars.
She was given the top position in 2021 by President Emmanuel Macron, based on the fact she was an expert on 19th century and early 20th century art. And thats what you want at the biggest museum in the world right? Someone at the top who can handle the pressure of ensuring the exhibitions, acquisitions, and scholarships align with the museum’s mission and national cultural policy. Yet, she is also the person everyone is holding accountable for the security beach in the Museum on the 19th Oct 2025 when unarmed robbers walked away with $102 million dollars of jewels. And to me these things don’t align.
For those of you who don’t know, the heist was a pretty simple plan executed very well. Four thieves dressed in high viz vests pull up outside the museum in a vehicle mounted mechanical lift. Two of them are raised to a first floor balcony, where they use an angle grinder to cut through some ultra think glass, then again on the jewelry glass. They then climb back through the window, back down the lift, jump on mopeds and disappear into the Paris traffic. This was carried out in under 8 minutes whilst the museum was open and visitors were walking around.
But surely the person who’s head is on the line is the person in charge of the security right? Not the one in charge of the exhibits?
So how did the biggest museum in the world allow themselves to be in a position where they were able to be robbed in such a simple and visible way?
Let’s first get some kind of context to what it takes to operate a museum. It’s a massive task. The museum has approximately 380,000 pieces in their possession, but only has space for 35,000 on public display. So the first major decision is; what 91% are they going to hide from public view. And the bits they do display requires 8 miles of corridors and rooms. And operationally that requires 1,200 staff on duty just so they can open their doors every morning to deal with the average 29,000 visitors per day.
And Laurance des Cars is responsible for that just to open up every morning. That doesn’t include managing their inventory, or dealing with HR, finance or security.
The latter being very relevant in this story. So lets not downplay the museums security before we start. It may have not done its job on the 19th, but its still pretty advanced.
Its has a Surveillance network of thousands of high-definition CCTV cameras with real-time monitoring and motion analytics being monitored by a 24 hour a day command centre, which is linked to police and fire departments. There are electric access control systems and biometric access for sensitive areas, and timed visitor flow controls. Infrared and laser sensors, pressure mats, vibration and movement detectors just like you would see in a Mission Impossible film. And of course, there is the reinforced glazing, secured display cases, controlled air-lock entrances, and bollard protection – although it is probably worth pointing out that these were installed for anti-terror and crowd-management reasons and could be the first clue as to what failed.
$100 million dollars worth of jewels and disappeared into the Paris traffic all in under 8 minutes.
No mission impossible abseiling, no sawnoff shotguns, no fast gettaway car. All they had was a crane hired the day before, an angle grinder and a whole lot of confidence.
So what went so wrong?
The first issue is the one every museum faces which is by definition they want to promote their rare and expensive property and encourage people they’ve never met before to inspect it as close up as possible. You know, if this was a bank, they would lock their priceless possessions underground somewhere behind bars and in safes with time delays and access would be limited to a very few individuals.
But museums can’t do that. So they are already against it. They are literally welcoming people in every day and encouraging them to explore the building and contents in detail and yet have no idea if they are genuinely interested in viewing the artifacts or stealing them.
However, you didn’t need to be high up in the criminal underworld to know the Louvre’s defenses were already stretched thin.
The museum has been cutting back staff for years. The unions have been warning about it repeatedly — less floor staff, less trained security personnel, and more pressure on the remaining team to simply keep the museum running. Yet, at the same time visitor numbers surged back to pre-pandemic levels. Apparently this ratio was so bad, there were notes taped to the doors saying “we’re a bit overwhelmed today, please be patient.”
Then there are the cameras. Now, the Louvre absolutely has thousands of them. But having thousands of something doesn’t mean any of it works smoothly. According to staff unions, many cameras were outdated, some coverage zones were incomplete, and blind spots were, and I quote; “well-known internally”. Basically: if you knew where to stand, you could be invisible. And if someone had been watching earlier strikes, protests, or building maintenance runs, you could learn that layout without ever Googling “museum heist tips.”
But in the museums defence, Laurence Des Cars wasn’t blind to this — she had already commissioned a major security modernization program. The price tag was reported to be tens of millions of euros spread over nearly a decade, with full completion expected to be not until 2032. Translation: our security is so bad, its going to take years to modernise. And unfortunately, in this case the thieves didn’t feel like waiting.
And then there’s the security team itself. The guards inside the Louvre aren’t armed. They’re civilian staff. Their job isn’t to wrestle jewel thieves; it’s to keep crowds moving, and stop people leaning on statues. The museum does have a police presence — but not stationed at every gallery door.
And when you then piece that all together it was only a matter of time before the museum was going to be robbed.
On the morning of robbery, the theives struck shortly after opening. The most chaotic part of the day, where staff and security were managing queues and chaos. A time where order existed, but it’s loosely held together with experience and caffeine. The lasers now switched off, the security bollards none existent, and a few cctv cameras pointing the in the wrong direction meant the thieves were already in the room of the jewels before anyone realised what was going on.
And when security did turn up, their protocol meant they prioritized visitor safety and locking down the area before confronting the thieves. Which, from a safety-engineering standpoint, makes perfect sense — just not if your job is to stop four confident men with a crane.
So when the museum realized what was happening and alerted police, the thieves were already rolling back out into the Paris streets — with $100 million of royal jewelry and not a single shot fired. The police weren’t late — the playbook just wasn’t built for this type of risk.
No drama. No cinematic tension. Just a system that assumed everyone in a hi-viz vest belonged there until they realised they didn’t.
What happened at the Louvre wasn’t a failure of technology or planning or professionalism. The systems were there. The protocols were written. The cameras, guards, sensors, command rooms — all of that was in place and Laurence des Cars can not be blamed for this.
What she could be blamed for though was assumption. Not just her, but every senior person within her team.
Everyone inside that building assumed the system was doing its job. They assumed the security upgrade was in place and being worked on. They assumed the guards would notice and act. They assumed a museum, by virtue of being a museum, was protected against something like this. And the thieves understood that. They didn’t beat the system — they simply acted with more confidence than the system was prepared to challenge.
Systems are designed in spreadsheets and documents. Human behavior is decided in real time. And those two worlds rarely meet in the middle.
The Louvre didn’t get robbed because it was careless. It got robbed because humans behave on trust, routine, and the comfort of the familiar — especially inside environments that are supposed to be “secure.” The staff weren’t stupid. The guards weren’t lazy. The protocols weren’t absurd. Everyone was just busy doing what made sense yesterday.
We design systems for order. We move through them on instinct.
That gap — the space between how things are meant to work and how people feel their way through them — is where almost every major failure happens. Not just in museums, but in businesses, governments, hospitals, families, and personal lives.
I don’t point this out to criticise. I point it out because it’s universal.
Every breakdown is just a reminder that humans are emotional creatures living inside logical structures — and we are constantly improvising our way through them.
This heist just made that visible.
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