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The Louvre Heist

October 24, 2025 • Kiran Menon, Debkanya Dhar

0:00 | 17:38

The Audacious Louvre Heist: A Tale of Modern-Day Robbery

Welcome to Takaro Kids! In this exciting episode, we dive into the daring Louvre Heist that captured the world's imagination. Listen in as we discuss the details of the heist, the historic Louvre Museum's treasures, and the audacity of the thieves who pulled it off in under eight minutes. We'll also share fun facts about the Louvre, recount another significant heist at the House of Enlightenment, and present this week's quiz on the largest painting in the Louvre. Don't miss out on the gripping story of modern-day robbery and the rich history behind one of the world's most iconic museums!

00:00 Introduction to Takaro Kids
00:31 The Audacious Louvre Heist
01:13 Details of the Heist
07:53 The Aftermath and Other Heists
08:34 Exploring the Louvre
09:05 Fun Facts and History of the Louvre
13:08 Quiz Time and Conclusion

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Debkanya 0:00

Mics! Camera! Action!

Kiran Menon 0:03

Welcome to Takaro Kids, a weekly podcast that helps kids of all ages understand the events that shape the world around them. And today we are gonna be talking about something really exciting, what we usually see only in movies, right?

Debkanya 0:19

Uh huh! I mean this is probably I don't know if you could say that this event is shaping the world around you but it has certainly captured everyone's imagination

Kiran Menon 0:29

Oh yeah.

Debkanya 0:30

of how

Kiran Menon 0:30

Hmm.

Debkanya 0:31

audacious it was And you know always fun to hear about robberies and heists and that's exactly what we're talking about today. We're talking about the Louvre Heist. We're going to go all the way to Paris which is in France to one of the world's most visited museums which has got one of the most iconic art collections in the world.

Kiran Menon 0:51

Historic Louvre Palace is in Paris, like you mentioned, and it's home to a lot of different kinds of art. And when we think about art, immediately, most people think about paintings, but it's not just paintings, it's sculptures, it's jewelry, it's different kind of artifacts that are available to see in the Louvre. mummies. Exactly. Yes. There are Egyptian mummies in there.

Debkanya 1:13

the kind of art that you'll find in the Louvre is um, you know, right from ancient civilization right down to the mid 19th century a lot of wealth collected in one place And what happened just last week was a group of four people, Just four thieves

Kiran Menon 1:30

Mm-hmm.

Debkanya 1:31

into the Louvre Actually two of them broke into the Louvre and made a way very quickly and very calmly with a bunch of jewelry. The French crown jewels they basically got in first thing in the morning when the museum opened at

Kiran Menon 1:46

bright and early.

Debkanya 1:47

Yeah right

Kiran Menon 1:48

and early.

Debkanya 1:49

And they were out within eight minutes Can believe it

Kiran Menon 1:52

That's, that's crazy. That's like even better than Oceans 11 and Oceans 12, the movies which talk about heists. Right. Even faster. So yeah, they, like you said, it was so interesting. It's, they started with a vehicle. Which basically has an electric ladder, so they started from outside the Louvre. It's an electric ladder that can keep going up, and it's actually very interesting if you've been to Paris and you know, if you've, been down those roads, it's very common to see these vehicles because very often they use these vehicles to transport furniture in and out of second floor, third floor homes and buildings and so on and so forth.

Debkanya 2:33

Because these are really old buildings with narrow staircases.

Kiran Menon 2:33

Yeah.

Debkanya 2:34

where a lot of

Kiran Menon 2:35

Correct.

Debkanya 2:35

big furniture fit

Kiran Menon 2:36

No lifts. Many of those places don't have elevators. So these two guys walked up that ladder, took a, took a you know, a glass cutter and basically cut through the window and got in. That's it. It's amazing.

Debkanya 2:57

You would think the Louvre is one of the most famous art museums in the world. A heist A heist is basically a robbery right. A heist that's been planned to get into the Louvre would be far more complicated and complex like

Kiran Menon 3:10

Yeah,

Debkanya 3:10

the movies like there'll be laser and they'll be they will go and trip the cameras and they will cut wires here and cut wires there and knock out some guards. But none of that happened during this heist

Kiran Menon 3:20

none of it. Yeah. No one was injured.

Debkanya 3:22

the Louv. No one was injured Thank God. They just went to the back of the Louvre So the front entrance of the Louvre -people the visitors who enter the Louvre come from the front. That's where I don't know maybe you've seen it or maybe you should look it up That's where the famous pyramid is right. The glass pyramid of the Louvre. That's where the entrance is This is at the back The robbery took place in something called the Gallery of Apollo And these guys they basically climbed up in with uh I think they're called Angle grinders special glass cutters.

Kiran Menon 3:50

Yep.

Debkanya 3:51

Got in spent a nice slow five six minutes They knew exactly where to go, broke the glass, scared away The security guards with those power drills. They didn't even have guns Okay

Kiran Menon 4:03

Yeah, it was crazy. What are they gonna do? Like drill them or It's like really weird.

Debkanya 4:09

I mean it was enough to scare them away so the

Kiran Menon 4:11

Yeah,

Debkanya 4:12

immediately ran away. And of course see this is also protocol. It's not like they were cowards and they just ran.

Kiran Menon 4:17

Yeah. Yeah.

Debkanya 4:18

was to stay away from any intruders armed intruders and make sure that the visitors to the

Kiran Menon 4:25

safe first. Yeah. Yeah.

Debkanya 4:27

then just alert the authorities which is what they did. So they followed protocol.

Kiran Menon 4:31

Correct.

Debkanya 4:32

these guys went in broke the glass cases Stole some eight items of jewelry a lot of precious stones a lot of diamonds and emeralds and sapphires

Kiran Menon 4:43

Mm-hmm.

Debkanya 4:43

All from the 19th century which belonged to the French royalty. So these are called the French Crown jewels. Crown jewels basically means it has been used and worn by the French royalty some point. And made off within eight minutes And actually I saw the video You should also try and see it. They went down the ladder really, really slowly out of the Louvre when they were making their escape. So it's not like they repelled down or had some jumped down with a parachute.

Kiran Menon 5:10

I haven't seen I should actually check that video out because I haven't actually watched that video, so it'll be interesting. Yeah,

Debkanya 5:16

is and and then what happened right after that is they tried to set fire to this little truck

Kiran Menon 5:22

yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Debkanya 5:23

they didn't manage quite manage to do that because there was security everywhere. So they got onto these motorbikes that can go at a hundred kilometers per hour and they zoomed out of there with with, uh with

Kiran Menon 5:33

it's amazing. I don't know how it was so easy and so simple. Right. It makes it look very simple. But if you've seen movies and movies where people are planning heists and robberies, it takes a lot of planning. So I'm sure there was a lot of planning, but uh, it's just weird. It just seemed like so simple

Debkanya 5:52

The fact that it took less than eight minutes

Kiran Menon 5:55

minutes. Yeah. Yeah.

Debkanya 5:56

was planned right down to the minute they knew exactly what was going to happen So, and they still have not been uh traced right the cops are

Kiran Menon 6:03

Correct.

Debkanya 6:03

looking for them. They have no idea who they are. On the way the only botch up really seems to be they dropped one crown which belonged To Empress Eugenie. Empress Eugenias Crown was found, it was damaged on the escape route. Probably fell out of a bag while they were trying to make their getaway. But yeah quite a lot I mean extremely valuable jewels there's a tiara and brooch that belonged to Empress Eugenie Empress Eugenie used to be the wife of Napoleon III, an emerald necklace and a pair of emerald earrings, a tiara, necklace and a single earring from a Sapphire set that belonged to Queen Maria Amelie and Hortense which has all gone missing. Okay One is the value of the jewelry of course very expensive But also what it means to the French people I think it's a lot of history and culture and their heritage that is tied to each piece which is why they're on display

Kiran Menon 6:51

Yep.

Debkanya 6:52

in an art museum.

Kiran Menon 6:53

Actually, you know, my kid had actually asked me what would they do with this? Because isn't it recognizable if they go and try and sell it anywhere,

Debkanya 7:01

Absolutely

Kiran Menon 7:02

will recognize it, right? And so won't they get caught. But the beauty about jewelry is that all of these pieces, whether it's a necklace or a ying or whatever it may be. Have a lot of precious stones in them, so it could be rubies and emeralds and you know, those kind of things. All they have to do is take those out of the earring, take that out of the necklace, and sell them individually. No one will know where it's come from. And that, I think is the interesting part. They don't have to sell the whole necklace. They will actually just take out all the precious stones and be able to sell them individually because those precious stones individually are not traceable. No one will know where it came from. So that kind of, yeah, that kind of becomes the interesting piece of what would they do potentially once they've stolen this? How do they make money out of it?

Debkanya 7:53

And it seems France has actually been struggling with a lot of crime. A lot of robberies have been taking place. In In fact right after this heist another one another robbery took place at the House of Enlightenment which is a French museum dedicated to the French philosopher Denis Diderot. And this is in northeastern France And here also it was very well planned the thieves went off with 2000 gold and silver coins worth around 90,000 euros which is around 91 lakh rupees right. So again another heist.

Kiran Menon 8:25

You think it's the same people?

Debkanya 8:27

Maybe Maybe it's coordinated Maybe there's gonna be more and we should

Kiran Menon 8:30

Yeah. That's crazy.

Debkanya 8:32

Yeah

Kiran Menon 8:34

And, you know, just the Louvre itself is such a such a monument on its own. Just the museum itself, you know, it's been so old. It's actually huge. The Mona Lisa is in the Louvre, which is the most well known painting perhaps globally. I went over there.

Debkanya 8:51

the most famous lady the world -One off

Kiran Menon 8:53

Exactly. Exactly. And I went over there and if you go see the Mona Lisa, it's actually really small. It's not like a massive painting. I always imagined it to be a massive painting, but it's a really small painting.

Debkanya 9:05

Fun fact here okay.

Kiran Menon 9:06

Mm-hmm.

Debkanya 9:07

is so small actually that in 1911

Kiran Menon 9:11

Okay.

Debkanya 9:12

an Italian museum employee actually stole the Mona Lisa. He just literally picked up the Mona Lisa

Kiran Menon 9:18

In the Louvre.

Debkanya 9:19

on yeah from the Louvre. Picked it up put it under his coat and then made off with it. He just took it off the wall This is of course many years ago before we had all these the

Kiran Menon 9:29

About a hundred plus years ago.

Debkanya 9:32

Yeah Yeah and the Mona Lisa went missing for two years

Kiran Menon 9:36

Wow.

Debkanya 9:37

Okay And then when finally they found him and they found the Mona Lisa basically said that since the Mona Lisa was painted by Leonardo da Vinci he believed that it actually belongs to Italy so he wanted to return it to his country But yeah that's how small it is that the Mona Lisa it could fit under his coat.

Kiran Menon 9:55

The Louvre is one of the largest, if not the largest museum in the world. It has halls and halls and halls of art and sculptures and, you know, paintings and like you said, different, different types of artwork. And in fact, what I found out while doing research for this episode is that it has about 35,000 pieces on display at any given time. 35,000. That's crazy. In fact, they, they actually have about 480,000 pieces of art. They just display 35,000 of them at any point of time.

Debkanya 10:35

The rest is all in storage huh!

Kiran Menon 10:37

It's all in storage and they keep switching it around depending on what the specific sort of, uh, you know, uh, exhibition is, is it the Egyptian, is it the artworks, oil,

Debkanya 10:49

whatever it

Kiran Menon 10:50

modernist? Yeah. Whatever it may be. And so if you actually spent only 30 seconds viewing each piece, 30 seconds viewing each piece, it would take you roughly a hundred days to see everything in the Louvre without any break or any sleep. Just 30 seconds at each piece. You will take a hundred days to see everything. Now. That is crazy, right? Think about it. That's insane.

Debkanya 11:20

No wonder

Kiran Menon 11:21

Yeah.

Debkanya 11:21

When people go to the Louvre they have made a list of okay I need to see these top few things and the Mona Lisa is always

Kiran Menon 11:29

Yep,

Debkanya 11:30

And

Kiran Menon 11:30

a hundred percent.

Debkanya 11:31

there it is just not possible for you to see all the art

Kiran Menon 11:35

Debkanya 11:35

lot

Kiran Menon 11:36

hundred days. Oh man, that's crazy. With no sleep, no breaks, no lunch, no nothing. You have to walk for a hundred days to see everything. And it's so cool because it has everything right? It has works which are like 9,000 years old. I think one of the oldest artifacts is a prehistoric sculpture from the Middle East, which is from 7,000 BCE.

Debkanya 11:59

You know, one interesting thing about the Louvre also that I was reading about

Kiran Menon 12:05

Mm-hmm.

Debkanya 12:06

actually first was created the palace itself it was actually not a palace it was a fortress

Kiran Menon 12:11

Oh, okay.

Debkanya 12:12

was built as a fortress in the 12th century by a French king called Philip II. It was built to protect Paris from invaders And then of course as time went by maybe they weren't so afraid of invaders anymore they decided to turn it into a royal palace. And then it was when it was made fancy with the fancy art and the rooms and the chandeliers and all the stuff that you see right now. And then again it was a palace only for obviously a handful of people to live in there are many servants. But in 1793 that's when the French Revolution happened Uh maybe we can talk about the French Revolution in another episode but it's

Kiran Menon 12:50

Yeah.

Debkanya 12:51

very big landmark time for France. Common people decided that art shouldn't just belong to royalty. It shouldn't just be accessible by kings and queens. Some of the greatest artists in the world It's accessible to us

Kiran Menon 13:04

Yeah.

Debkanya 13:05

thanks to the French Revolution.

Kiran Menon 13:07

That's pretty cool. As we come to the end of this episode, I'm assuming that this week's quiz question has something to do with the Louvre..

Debkanya 13:16

You would think so you imagine

Kiran Menon 13:17

I think. I think it should be, no. Yeah.

Debkanya 13:20

Yes I absolutely And we are as predictable as that Hey we are not always predictable. Sometimes we change

Kiran Menon 13:25

Oh, the last week or the week before you turned it upside down. I forgot about that. Oh my God. Yeah.

Debkanya 13:32

Okay so let's get to the quiz question for this week's episode. Which is the largest painting in the Louvre. Okay Usually we give the answer away in the episode somewhere but this one we want you to go and research and find out for yourself and let us know. We are gonna give you options so you know where to look roughly. Option one is it The Wedding Feast at Cana. Option two it the Mona Lisa. Option three, The Raft of Medusa. Option four The Coronation of Napoleon.

Kiran Menon 14:10

I definitely know it's not the Mona Lisa because it's a really, really small thing, so it can't be the largest painting, so it's one of the other three.

Debkanya 14:19

thanks for giving that hint away. Cool So then you have three more options to pick from. Do your research find out and let us know. Send in your answers to www.takarokids.com or you can send us a message on Instagram and we will be picking a lucky winner.

Kiran Menon 14:38

And that lucky winner will basically get a gift certificate and a Takaro kids t-shirt. Just to remind everyone, it is not about the person who sends it the first. It's not about how quickly you send us a answer. It's not about how many times you've sent it before. You keep sending your answers and you could be a lucky winner from all the answers that we get. In fact, we actually asked you a very, very important question last week, which is about the Nobel Peace Prize, and who is the Indian, or who are the Indians who have won the Nobel Peace Prize? Debbie, you have the answer for us.

Debkanya 15:23

I do have the answer and like Kiran said, it was a think it's a trick question that we asked The options we gave you are Option one Mother Teresa, option two -the Dalai Lama, option three Kailash Satyarthi or option four Rabindranath Tagore and the correct answer here. Now more than one name. is actually the correct answer. Mother Teresa became an Indian citizen in 1951 but before that she was Albanian. She's of Albanian descent and she won the Nobel Peace Prize so that counts as an Indian who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kiran Menon 15:58

She won it in 1979, so after she had become an Indian.

Debkanya 16:01

Yes exactly So Mother Theresa is also the correct answer. Second option was Dalai Lama Now Dalai Lama lives in India. He's been living in Dharamshala for many years but he's not an Indian. He's actually from Tibet. Tibet is a separate country and he's been here as a refugee. Long story there as well. The Dalai Lama won the Peace Prize but he's not an Indian. Third option Kailash Satyarthi. Yes he is an Indian who won the Peace Prize. In fact he shared it with Malala Yusufzai another very famous Nobel Peace Prize winner. He won it because he was campaigning against Child Labour and he campaigned for the right for every child to get an education. So a very noble cause there.

Kiran Menon 16:44

Super important. Yeah.

Debkanya 16:46

And the fourth option. Kiran

Kiran Menon 16:48

Rabindranath Tagore. He got the Nobel Prize, but for literature, not for peace.

Debkanya 16:53

Yes

Kiran Menon 16:54

So the right everyone is Mother Teresa and Kailash Satyarthi. and we have one lucky winner over here we have Luke from Goa, who's actually the lucky winner this week.

Debkanya 17:09

Congratulations So your t-shirt and your gift voucher is going to be on its way to you very soon. Well done for sending in the correct answer and well done for thinking that through because it was a trick question. And we will be waiting for all the answers to today's quiz question You can go back listen to the