By Sophie Albertie
“Heists are so back” said a random girl dissecting the events of last weekend on a tiktok video.
The Louvre was heisted in seven minutes at 9:30 am this past Sunday. Eight items of jewelry were taken as the team of four thieves conspired to rob the Apollo gallery using a basket lift perched outside one of the upstairs windows. All eight items were jewelry which added up to a net worth of 102 million.
The missing pieces included necklaces and tiaras worn by 19th century monarchs. The criminals quickly smashed display cases in close proximity to the Mona Lisa, and fled without a trace. Except for one of the scoundrels, who dropped the crown of Napoleon III’s wife.
In the span of only a couple of days, the curious nature of the crime has spread like wildfire across the internet. People worldwide have begun to discuss the possible underlying ethics of this incident. Some say this could constitute as a modern-day robinhood situation. The process of harvesting each jewel most likely involved the brutal slaughtering of anyone who wasn’t rich and white, as history suggests.
Others rebuttal with the simple fact that each piece stolen in this story were gifts to loved ones, and the robbers were not doing this because of some strong sense of justice, but rather scheming just to scheme.
The discourse poses a relevant question: why can’t both facts be true? A carefully calculated procedure was successfully accomplished for probably no particular reason. The suspects were able to pull this off simply because of the milquetoast security measures.
Either way, it is fair to say that most commentary is not coming from people at the scene of the crime, but rather curious Americans that either want to see a real life reenactment of Oceans Eleven or to catch the thieves red handed. Because of the traction the heist received on social media, a seemingly outrageous criminal act has turned into lighthearted fascinating fun to read about in between other world events.
President Emmanuel Macron has been placed in hot water overnight as Parisians demand the security of the Museum to be greatly increased.
“The theft at the Louvre is an attack on the heritage that is dear to us because it is our history.” Macron wrote in a tweet. He is currently urging for quicker security measures to take place.
Objectively, theft is harmless. The 60 detectives assigned to this case should instead be focused on how anyone robbed one of the most famous museums in the world during visitation hours. If they don’t find out whodunnit, Focus shouldn’t stay on the perpetrators for very long. If they came for one of the paintings it would be easier to coin the escapade as evil, but the simplicity of going for jewels proves that this is about the profit side of things and not anything else.
