"THE LOUVRE HEIST: $100 MILLION IN CROWN JEWELS STOLEN IN 4 MINUTES - HOW DNA CAUGHT THE THIEVES"

0:03 Callaroga Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Friday, November seventh, twenty twenty five. October nineteenth, twenty twenty five, Paris, France. Nine a m. The Louver Museum opens its doors. Eight million visitors passed through annually, most famous museum in the world, home to the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and what remains of the French crown Jewels. Thirty minutes later, those Crown jewels are gone. A truck pulls up to the museum's riverfront side Que Francois Miterane, right along the Seine broad daylight tourists everywhere. The truck has a mechanical lift, the kind furniture movers used to hoist couches to second floor apartments. Nine thirty am. The lift extends up to the balcony of the Gallery Dapolon. The Apollo Gallery second floor, one of the most ornate rooms in the museum, gilded Baroque hall, painted ceilings and glass cases containing what's left of France's crown jewels, the ones that survived the French Revolution, the ones Napoleon gave his wives, the ones French empresses war at coronations four men wearing reflective yellow vests and hard hats, construction workers. Nobody questions them. This is Paris, there's always construction. Two men climb the lift, reach the balcony,

1:34 use a disc cutter to slice through the window. Glass shatters. Security alarms immediately trigger, but alarms don't stop determined thieves. They're inside museum. Visitors are in the gallery, Security guards are in the gallery. Everyone just watching, frozen, confused. Is this a drill? The two men pull out power tools, circular saws, angle grinders, cut through the glass display cases. Not elegant, not surgical, just brute force, smashing and grabbing. They take jewelry from two cases. Tiaras, necklaces, earrings, brooches, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds.

2:17 Eight pieces total, worth eighty eight million euros about one hundred million dollars in American dollars, but the real value priceless. These are pieces of French history, worn by queens and empresses, symbols of national heritage. Four minutes that's how long they're inside the building. Four minutes from window breach to exit. They climb back down the lift. Two accomplices waiting on the street with high powered motor scooters. The thieves try to set the lift on fire, can't get it to catch no time security and police are responding. They jump on the scooters speed away along the banks of the Seine, weaving through Paris traffic toward the Boulevard Periphyrique, then onto the A six auto route heading south. Total time from arrival to escape eight minutes, less time than it takes to order coffee at a Parisian cafe. Behind them, broken glass, shattered display cases, one dropped crown too big to fit through the opening they'd cut in the glass. They'd deformed it trying to force it through, then abandoned it in the street. Scattered across the crime scene a motorcycle helmet, a circular saw, gloves, a gas can, a walkie talkie, a reflective vest, smart enough to plan a one hundred million dollar heist, too stupid to clean up after themselves.

3:35 France is in shock. The Louver. The Louver has been robbed in broad daylight, with visitors present, like something out of a movie, except this is real, and eight priceless pieces of French heritage are gone. President Emmanuel Macron calls it an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history. Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin admits we have failed. The museum director offers to resign, But French police have something The thieves didn't count on. DNA left all over the crime scene, on the helmet, the gloves, the scooters, the broken glass, the mechanical lift, and France has something else, a database four point four million DNA profiles every criminal convicted or even suspected of certain crimes for the past twenty seven years. Less than a week after the heist, police arrest two suspects. Three days later they arrest five more. Today, four are charged. Three of the four thieves are in custody, one still at large.

4:38 The jewels still missing, probably being dismantled into individual stones as we speak. I'm read Carter today, the Louver heist, the robbery of the decade. How petty criminals from the Paris suburbs pulled off one of history's most brazen museum thefts, How DNA caught them in less than a wee, and how the real crime was the Louver's twenty years of security failures that made it all possible. This is celebrity trials. Let's start at the beginning. The Louver, founded in seventeen ninety three after the French Revolution. Originally a royal palace built in the twelfth century, transformed into a museum when revolutionaries decided that people should have access to art that once belonged only to kings. Today it's the most visited museum in the world eight point one million visitors last year, seventy two thousand square meters of exhibition space, three hundred eighty thousand objects, thirty five thousand works of art on display, among them the French Crown Jewels, or what's left of them.

5:49 Most were broken up and sold during the revolution, but some survived and they're displayed in the Gallery Dapolon the Apollo Gallery on the second floor. This gally is stunning, built in the seventeenth century under Louis the fourteenth, gilded walls, painted ceilings by Charles le Bron, ornate Baroque architecture. It once housed the Royal gem collection. Today it houses what remains of the Crown jewels, including the Regent Diamond one hundred forty carrots, valued at fifty one million euros alone, and the Sanse Diamond at fifty five carrots. October nineteenth, twenty twenty five, Saturday morning, beautiful autumn day in Paris, Tourists flooding the city. The louver opens at nine am as usual, people line up to see the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory, the Venus de Milo standard Saturday at the museum nine thirty a m. Thirty minutes after opening, a stolen truck arrives on Ques Francois Mitterrane, the river front side of the museum, parks right next to the building.

6:56 Nobody stops it. No barriers, no ballards, just a public street where anyone can park. The truck has a mechanical basket lift mounted on it, the kind furniture movers use extends up to thirty feet, painted to look professional, yellow and white, legitimate looking. Four men exit the truck, wearing reflective yellow safety vests over their clothes, hard hats, work boots. They look like construction workers, maintenance crew. This is Paris. There's always scaffolding, always renovation, always workers fixing something. Nobody questions them. Two men climb into the basket of the lift. It extends upward, slowly, mechanically, up to the second floor balcony of the Apollo Gallery about twenty feet off the ground.

7:42 Here's where the louverrous security failed catastrophically. The museum has cameras, lots of them, three hundred and fifty cameras inside the building, but outside on the perimeter only about twenty five cameras total, only five on the outer walls, and the camera on the Apollo Gallery facade pointed in the wrong direction, facing west, away from the window where the thieves were about to break in, so nobody saw them coming. Nobody noticed a furniture lift extending up to a second floor balcony at the most famous museum in the world. The two men reach the balcony, pull out a disc cutter, industrial power tool used for cutting through metal and glass. They slice through the window. Glass shatters. Security alarms trigger immediately high pitched whaling throughout the building. Museum security responds. Police are notified, but it takes time minutes and the thieves only need four.

8:39 The two men climb through the broken window into the Apollo Gallery. Museum visitors are inside, looking at the jewels, looking at the paintings, looking at the ornate ceiling, now looking at two men in reflective vests climbing through a window with power tools. Security guards are in the gallery too, but their priority is protecting the visitor, getting people to safety, not confronting armed intruders with circular saws and angle grinders. The thieves don't waste time. They go straight for two display cases, high security cases, reinforced glass, locked, alarmed, doesn't matter. They use their power tools. Circular saws cut right through the glass. Not elegant, not sophisticated, just brute force. A louver security guard films them on his phone, captures the whole thing. Two men in yellow vests destroying display cases, pulling out jewelry, stuffing it into bags. Four minutes of chaos.

9:39 They take eight pieces, specific pieces, targeted pieces. This wasn't random. They knew what they wanted. A tiara necklace and single earring from the sapphire perure of Queen Marie Amalie and Queen or Tense blue sapphires diamonds nineteenth century, worn by French royalty. An emerald nets cless and matching earrings. The Marie Louise necklace gifted by Napoleon Bonaparte to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise in eighteen eleven. More than one thousand diamonds, priceless emeralds. One of the most significant pieces in the collection, a tiara and brooch from Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon the Third, mid nineteenth century, covered in diamonds. They try to take a ninth item, the crown of Empress Uzhenie gold more than two thousand diamonds, fifty six emeralds, eight gold eagles, but it's too big. The opening they cut in the glass case isn't large enough. They try to force it through, deform the crown, flatten it, bend, It still won't fit. No time. Police are coming. Guards are responding.

10:48 They abandon the crown, leave it in the case. Nine thirty four a m. They climb back down through the window into the basket lift, descend to street level. Try to set the lift truck on fire. Poor gasoline. Use a lighter, it won't catch. The basket is metal, the gasoline isn't spreading. They're out of time. Two accomplices waiting on the street high powered motor scooters Yamaha sport bikes, fast maneuverable, perfect for escaping through Paris traffic. The four men jump on the scooters, two per bike, speed away along the qu Francois Miterane, following the Senne heading east through Paris. As they flee, one of them drops the crown of Empress Ougnie in the street, the ninth item they'd managed to grab, two thousand diamonds and fifty six emeralds, bouncing across the pavement. A louver staff member finds it minutes later, damaged, diamonds, missing, gold eagles, broken off but recoverable.

11:48 Nine thirty eight am, eight minutes after they arrived, the thieves are gone, disappear into Paris traffic. Security footage captures them heading toward the Boulevard Peri Ferique, then on to the A six auto route, then nothing they vanish. Left behind at the scene the truck with the mechanical lift couldn't torch, it couldn't move, it just abandoned it. A motorcycle helmet, a circular saw, an angle grinder, gloves, a gas can, a walkie talkie, a reflective yellow vest, a blanket. In their rush to escape, these supposedly sophisticated thieves left behind a forensic bonanza DNA everywhere on the helmet, inside the gloves, on the lift, bucket, on the scooters they abandoned a few blocks away on the broken glass, from the display cases on the window frame. Paris Prosecutor lor Becuo would later say investigators collected one hundred and fifty forensic samples from the scene, fingerprints, DNA trace evidence, all of it waiting to be analyzed, all of it pointing directly at the thieves. But in that moment, as police arrived at the louver, all they knew was eight pieces of French now tional heritage were gone, worth one hundred million more importantly worth centuries of history. Napoleon's gifts to his wives, empresses, coronation jewels irreplaceable. The museum was evacuated, Apollo Gallery closed as a crime scene. Black curtain hung

13:19 over the broken window. The remaining Crown jewels, including the Regent and Sancy diamonds, valued at tens of millions, were immediately transferred to the Bank of France for safekeeping. Can't risk losing anything else. President Macron issued a statement, an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history. We will recover these jewels and bring the perpetrators to justice. Justice Minister Darminin admitted the obvious. We have failed. One can wonder why the windows hadn't been secured, why a basket lift was allowed on a public road. We have failed. Museum director Lawrence des Car offered her resignation Uch Your Minister Rachida Dati refused it, but Descar had to testify before the French Senate had to explain how this happened. Her testimony was devastating. Only one third of the museum's wings are under video surveillance. The camera on the Apollo Gallery balcony was pointed the wrong direction.

14:17 Perimeter security has been a problem for a long time, certainly due to under investment. A subsequent investigation by cultural affairs inspectors found chronic structural underestimation of the risk of intrusion and theft at the louver for the last twenty years. Twenty years, two decades of knowing there was a problem, two decades of doing nothing. Make it make sense. The most visited museum in the world eight million people a year, housing some of humanity's greatest treasures, and they couldn't be bothered to point a camera at the balcony of the room containing the Crown Jewels. Your tax dollars at work, or, in this case, French tax euros. Same principle, massive institutional failure.

15:03 Everyone knew security was inadequate, nobody did anything, and now eight pieces of French history are gone. But the thieves made mistakes, big mistakes, and those mistakes would bring them down in less than a week. We'll be right back with how DNA caught the thieves and why France's four point four million profile database is both a crime solving tool and a privacy nightmare. Welcome back to celebrity trials. I'm read Carter. The Louver heist shocked France, but what happened next shocked criminal justice experts around the world. October nineteenth, the heist October twenty fifth, two arrests. Six days later, October twenty ninth, five more arrests. Ten days after the heist November first, four suspects formally charged less than two weeks from crime to charges for a one hundred million dollar international heist at one of the world's most famous museums.

16:11 That's not just fast, that's unprecedented. How did they do it? DNA? The thieves left behind a treasure trove of evidence, a motorcycle helmet with sweat inside gloves with skin cells. The lift truck they'd tried to burn had DNA on the bucket where they'd leaned or touched it. One of the scooters they'd abandoned had DNA on the handlebars. The broken glass from the display cases had DNA from cuts or scratches. The window frame had DNA where they'd climbed through. One hundred and fifty forensic samples total, all sent to public and certified private labs for sequencing, All compared against France's National Automated Genetic Fingerprint File. That's the official name, everyone just calls it the DNA database, started in nineteen ninety eight after a serial killer case. Today it contains four point four million DNA profiles. Let me paint you the picture of how this works. Police find DNA at a crime scene, saliva, sweat, hair, skin cells, blood, semen, any biological material. They collect it carefully, send it to a lab.

17:18 The lab sequences the DNA, creates a genetic profile, basically a barcode unique to that individual, then sends that profile to be compared against the database. The database searches for exact matches. If the person whose DNA was found at the crime scene has ever been convicted of or even suspected of certain crimes, their DNA is in the system. In this case, the thieves had criminal records, mostly for theft, some for traffic violations. When they were arrested. Previously, police collected their DNA standard procedure in France put it in the database just in case. October nineteenth, the heist happens.

17:59 Evidence collected October twentieth to twenty fourth labs sequence the DNA, compare it to the database October twenty fifth. Match found two names, two addresses, two targets. Police don't immediately arrest them. They watch them, follow them, track their movements, see who they contact, where they go, looking for accomplices, looking for the jewels. But they're forced to move early because one of them, a thirty four year old Algerian national living in France, books a one way flight to Algeria leaving October twenty fifth from Charles de Gaul Airport. Police scramble can't let him flee the country, coordinate with airport security, wait until he's at the gate about to board, then grab him. Arrested during passport control. One way ticket to Algeria in hand, clearly trying to disappear. Simultaneously, police arrest the second suspect, thirty nine year old French citizen, lives in Obevilliers, a suburb north of Paris in San San Denis, arrested at home, no warning, just police at the door.

19:03 Both men are brought in for questioning, can be held for up to four days under French law. Both have lawyers. Both initially deny everything. Then police show them the evidence. Your DNA was on the scooter, your DNA was on the broken glass, your DNA was inside the glove, your DNA was on the lift bucket. We have you on security footage, we have you on witness accounts. Both men partially admit their involvement. That's the official language. They don't confess everything, but they acknowledge being there, being involved, just not willing to give full details yet. October twenty ninth, police arrest five more suspects raids across Paris and San Saint Denis, looking for accomplices for the other two members of the four man team, for anyone who helped plan or execute the heist. One of those arrested, a thirty seven year old man. His DNA is found on the mechanical lift bucket. He's believed to be one of the accomplices who waited on the s street with the scooters.

20:01 One of the getaway drivers also arrested, his thirty eight year old girlfriend, charged with complicity being an accomplice helping plan or execute the crime. Both deny involvement, but the DNA doesn't lie. Three others arrested that day are released without charges. Not enough evidence, wrong people. Police are casting a wide net trying to find everyone involved. So here's the breakdown. Four people directly involved in the heist. Two climbed the lift and broke into the museum, two waited on the street with scooters. Three of those four are now in custody. Thirty four year old Algerian national former garbage collector and delivery driver DNA on the scooter, DNA on the glass was about to flee to Algeria. Thirty nine year old French citizen unlicensed taxi driver DNA on the lift, fifteen previous convictions, including ramming a car into an ATM to rob it, lives in Obervilliers. V seven year old French citizen DNA on the lift bucket. Eleven previous convictions ten for theft, committed a theft in twenty fifteen with a thirty nine year old. They know each other, also from Sencendinie. One member of the four man team is still at large. Police are hunting him, but three out of four isn't bad for less than two weeks.

21:20 Also charged, the thirty seven year old's girlfriend thirty eight years old, mother of his children, allegedly helped plan the heist. Her DNA might be transferred DNA, meaning she touched something that touched the crime scene, not that she was there directly. Still charged as an accomplice denies everything. All four charged with theft by an organized gang and criminal conspiracy. If convicted, they're facing decades in prison. Paris prosecutor lor Bekuo held a press conference explained how they caught the thieves credited the DNA database, said explicitly, I am convinced that we would not have found these people if the DNA that was found at this theft hadn't matched with this database.

22:07 That's a remarkable admission. Without the DNA database, these thieves might have gotten away with it. The security footage was limited, the getaway was clean. They disappeared into Paris but they couldn't escape their own biology. Gaietam Poitaven, a criminal lawyer who wrote his master's thesis on France's DNA database, told The New York Times, we would not have found these people without the database. But here's the question. Is that a good thing. France's DNA database started in nineteen ninety eight after a serial killer named Gui George, the Eastern Paris Killer, murdered seven women. He'd been arrested earlier for assault.

22:49 Police collected his DNA, but France had no centralized database, so they couldn't match his DNA to the rape murder scenes. He was released, went on to kill two more women. Finally caught convicted, The case prompted creation of the National DNA Database. Initially, it only contained DNA of sexual offenders, but it expanded. Today it includes anyone convicted or even suspected of murder, terrorism, drug trafficking, assault, theft, property damage, and dozens of other crimes. You don't have to be convicted, just suspected, arrested, questioned, and your DNA goes into the database forever. The process of being removed is so difficult that almost nobody tries. Refused to give DNA at least a year in prison and a fifteen thousand euro fine about seventeen four hundred dollars, so almost everyone complies. From twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two, an average of six hundred eighty people per year were convicted of refusing to provide DNA, less than one percent of people charged. Criminal defense lawyer Pointivan says, among my clients, absolutely zero refuse because for them it's an admission of guilt. So the database keeps growing four point four million profiles at the end of last year, and French investigators can cross reference with thirty other European national databases, plus databases from the United States and other countries. It's incredibly effective. Cold cases

24:23 get solved decades later. In twenty eleven, French police use the database to search for similar DNA profiles, not exact matches, but family members, and solved a nine year old murder by tracking down the killer's father. First. The Dominique Pellico case, the man who drugged his wife Giselle and invited dozens of men to rape her over a decade, was connected to an attempted rape from nineteen ninety nine through the DNA database that case had been called for twenty years until Pellicott was arrested in twenty twenty. Gave DNA and it matched the nineteen ninety nine crime scene samples. The database works, It solves crimes, It catches criminals, It delivers justice for victims, but at what cost. Privacy advocates are terrified.

25:10 One person giving DNA to police essentially gives up the genetic privacy of their entire family, present and future, because familial DNA searching can connect relatives. Joelle ve Lee, a sociologist who studies DNA use in the French justice system, calls it genetic suspects. Your cousin commits a crime twenty years from now. Police find DNA at the scene, They search for similar profiles, find you in the database, use your DNA to track down your cousin. You've become a genetic suspect without doing anything wrong. France bans private consumer genetics companies like twenty three in meters or ancestry dot com. The practice of tracing ancestry is sensitive there. During World War II, Jewish ancestry records were used to send people to death camps, so France doesn't allow commercial DNA databases, But last month, Justice Minister Gerald d'armanin said he plans to introduce legislation allowing investigators to access foreign commercial DNA databases, mainly American ones, for serious unsolved crimes, exactly what France bans domestically they want to use internationally. Some lawyers call it hypocritical and dangerous. Vailey says it infringes on privacy rights.

26:25 One person using a consumer service offers up the DNA of whole families to law enforcement. But here's the reality. It works. The Lover thieves were caught because they'd committed crimes before. Their DNA was in the database. When they left DNA at the heist, police matched it in hours, six days later, arrests two weeks later. Charges. Without that database, the thieves might still be free. The jewels might still be missing. Wait, the jewels are still missing, but at least the thieves are caught. Is the trade off worth it, sacrificing privacy for security, genetic surveillance for crime solving. That's not for me to decide, But I'll tell you this, the thieves in this case weren't criminal masterminds. They were petty criminals. From the suburbs. Small time thieves who somehow pulled off a one hundred million dollar heist, and they got caught because they were too stupid to wear gloves that didn't leak their DNA. Here's what shocked everyone about this case. The suspects aren't Ocean's eleven. They're not international art thieves. They're not sophisticated criminals with connections to organized crime.

27:44 They're petty criminals, local thieves from San San Denis, one of the poorest suburbs north of Paris, high unemployment, high crime, the kind of place where people steal because that's how they survive. The thirty four year old Algerian national worked as a garbage collector and delivery driver. One previous conviction for theft, several traffic violations, small time offender, nothing that would suggest he's capable of planning and executing a one hundred million dollar museum heist. The thirty nine year old French citizen is an unlicensed taxi driver, also worked as a delivery driver. Fifteen previous convictions, two for theft. One of those thefts involved ramming a car into an ATM to rob it. That's his level of sophistication, ram and grab, not exactly Danny Ocean. The thirty seven year old man has eleven previous convictions, ten of them for theft. Prosecutor Bekwow said he and the thirty nine year old committed a theft together in twenty fifteen. They know each other, probably grew up in the same neighborhood, small time criminals running in the same circles. Prosecutor Bekwow told French radio.

28:54 This is not quite everyday delinquency, but it is a type of delinquency that we do not generally associate with the upper echelons of organized crime. They are clearly local people. She found the profile surprising, but noted what we are seeing now is that people with no significant association with organized crime are progressing relatively quickly to committing extremely serious crimes. Translation, YouTube and the Internet taught small time thieves how to do big time heists. Think about it. Twenty years ago, you needed connections to pull off a museum heist, needed fences to sell the jewels, needed contacts with organized crime, needed international smuggling networks. You couldn't just wake up one day and decide to rob the louver. But today google how to cut through reinforced glass. Watch a few YouTube videos about power tools, find a truck rental company, buy some reflective vests and hard hats. Scout the location on Google Maps, plan your escape route on GPS. These guys weren't sophisticated. They were competent enough, and the louver's security was incompetent enough that it worked. But here's where their stupidity shows. The things they left behind. A helmet with DNA inside. Professional criminals wear disposable hairnets under helmets to avoid leaving DNA. Gloves with DNA on them. Professional criminals wear two pairs of gloves, dispose of the outer pair at the scene. The lift truck they tried to burn.

30:26 Professional criminals use stolen vehicles they can actually destroy, not metal furniture lifts that won't catch fire. Scooters they abandoned a few blocks away with DNA on the handlebars. Professional criminals dump bikes into the sind or torch them immediately. A circular saw, an angle grinder, a gas can, a walkie talkie, a reflective vest. Professional criminals take their tools with them or destroy them and the crown they dropped in the street during their escape. Professional criminals don't drop two thousand diamond on the pavement because they cut the glass case opening too small, smart enough to plan the heist, too stupid to clean up after themselves. The prosecutor said they partially admitted their involvement. That's French legal language for they sang like canaries once we showed them the evidence, didn't give full confessions, didn't admit everything, but acknowledged being there, being involved, just trying to minimize their roles. The girlfriend, the thirty eight year old woman. Her lawyer said she's devastated by the accusations. Claims she had nothing to do with it. Maybe true. Maybe she's just the unlucky partner of a criminal who involved her without her knowledge. Or maybe she helped planet DNA might be transferred DNA, or it might place her at the scene. But here's what we know for sure. Three of the four thieves are in custody. They're not international art thieves, they're not sophisticated criminals.

31:55 They're local guys from the suburbs who got lucky because the Louverris security was pathetic, and now they're going to prison for decades for jewels they'll never get to enjoy. For a crime that was solved in six days because they were too dumb to clean up their DNA. Make it make sense. Eight pieces of jewelry worth one hundred million dollars more importantly worth centuries of French history, still missing three weeks after the heist. Here's what was taken. The sapphire perrour of Queen Marie Amelie and Queen Hortense. A tiara necklace and single earring. Blue sapphires surrounded by diamonds nineteenth century, worn by French royalty at state occasions. Irreplaceable.

32:42 The Marie Louise necklace and matching earrings. This is the crown jewel of the Crown Jewels, gifted by Napoleon Bonaparte to his second wife, Empress Marie Louise in eighteen eleven. More than one thousand diamonds. Massive emerald, one of the most historically significant pieces in the collection. Napoleon giving jewelry to his Empress. That's French history in physical form. A tiara and broach from Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon, the third covered in diamonds, mid nineteenth century. Another piece of imperial French history. Eight items total, thousands of individual diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds, all mounted in gold, all irreplaceable. The ninth item they tried to take, the crown of Empress Eugenie, was recovered, damaged but recoverable. Found in the street where they dropped it, more than two thousand diamonds, fifty six emeralds, eight gold eagles. They deformed it trying to force it through the glass case opening. Several small diamonds were missing.

33:47 One gold eagle broken off, but the louver's art conservation team says it can be restored. Won't be in original condition, but close enough, still retains its symbolic value, but the other eight pieces gone. Prosecutor Becuau says she's still hopeful they can be recovered intact, that the thieves might realize destroying them is pointless, that they'll try to use them as bargaining chips if caught. Robert Whitman, founder of the FBI's Art Crime Team, told reporters the thieves have good reason to preserve the jewels. In France and Europe, stolen art can be used as a get out of jail card, return the stolen property get a reduced sentence, But if you've already destroyed. It no bargaining power, nothing to trade, but experts are skeptical. Christopher Marinello, CEO of Art Recovery International, told ABC News. If the jewels are not recovered in the first forty eight hours, they are most likely broken up into smaller jewels and gems and sold in the market place. Three weeks later, still no sign of them.

34:51 That's not good. Here's what likely happened. The jewels were taken to a safe location immediately after the heist. Could be in Paris, could be in another country. France borders eight countries, easy to smuggle across borders in Europe. Then they're photographed, documented, offered quietly to black market buyers, collectors who don't care about providence, who just want to own a piece of history, who'll keep it in a private safe and never show anyone, or more likely the pieces are being dismantled. A jeweler with no ethics takes the Marie Louise necklace apart one thousand individual diamonds, each one sold separately to different buyers. Emeralds, two sapphires from the perure, all separated, all sold individually. The gold is melted down, reshaped, sold as raw gold, the historical settings destroyed. Within weeks, the jewels effectively ceased to exist. They're transformed into hundreds of individual stones scattered across the black market, untraceable, unrecoverable.

35:56 That's the nightmare scenario, and it's probably already happened. Interpol added all eight pieces to its Stolen Works of Art database on October twentieth, the day after the heist, Alerts sent to law enforcement agencies in one hundred and ninety five countries. Customs officials watching for the pieces, art dealers and auction houses notified anyone trying to sell them legitimately will be caught. But the black market doesn't care about Interpol databases, doesn't care about provenance, doesn't care about history, just cares about money. Individual diamonds are virtually impossible to trace. Sure, there are large, famous diamonds with documented characteristics. The Regent diamond has a specific cut, color, clarity. You can't just sell that at a pawnshop. But a one carit diamond that came from the Marie Luise necklace, that could be any diamond, No way to prove it came from the Louver heist. So the jewels are probably gone forever. Even if the thieves are caught, even if they confess, even if they tell police what they did with the pieces, if they've already been dismantled and sold, there's no recovery.

37:06 France has lost eight pieces of its national heritage, Napoleon's gifts, empresses, coronation jewels, symbols of French royal history, destroyed for profit. And the three thieves in custody aren't talking, at least not about the jewels. They partially admitted involvement in the heist, but they're not saying where the jewels are, who has them, what happened to them. The fourth thief still at large. He's probably the key. He has the jewels, or knows where they are, or knows who has them, but police haven't caught him yet. Prosecutor Bekwau says investigators are exploring all leads, conducting searches, seizing evidence, examining new objects, but three weeks later, still nothing. The jewels are gone, probably forever.

37:55 France will never get them back, never see them displayed in the Apollo gallery again, never let visitors marvel at Napoleon's gifts to his wives. That's the real loss, not the one hundred million dollars. That's just insurance money. The real loss is the history, the heritage, the physical connection to France's past. You can't put a price on that. Someone has to say it. These jewels belonged to France, to the French people, to anyone who visited the Louver and marveled at them. And now they're gone, dismantled, destroyed, scattered across the black market because the Louver couldn't be bothered to secure their perimeter. That's celebrity trials for Friday, November seventh, twenty twenty five. October nineteenth, four thieves robbed the Louver in broad daylight eight pieces of French Crown jewels worth one hundred million dollars four minutes inside the museum, eight minutes total from arrival to a scale left behind DNA on helmets, gloves, scooters, the lift bucket, broken glass.

39:05 Smart enough to plan a museum heist, too stupid to clean up after themselves. October twenty fifth, two arrests DNA matched to France's four point four million profile database. Petty criminals from Sen Saint Denis one trying to flee to Algeria. October twenty ninth, five more arrests, four suspects now charged, three of the four thieves in custody, one still at large. November seventh, jewels still missing, probably being dismantled as we speak. Napoleon's emerald necklace broken into a thousand individual stones, empresses, tiaras destroyed for their raw materials. French heritage lost forever.

39:45 The real crime isn't the heist. The real crime is the louvers. Twenty years of security failures. Only a third of the museum under video. Surveillance camera on the Apollo Gallery pointed the wrong direction, no barriers prevent vehicles from parking next to the building, no perimeter security worth mentioning, chronic structural underestimation of the risk. According to the official report translation, everyone knew this could happen, nobody did anything, and now eight pieces of French history are gone. Your tax dollars at work, or in this case, French tax euros. Same principle, institutional failure at the highest level, the most visited museum in the world, and they couldn't protect the Crown Jewels from four guys with a furniture lift and some power tools make it make sense. The thieves will go to prison, probably for decades, but the jewels will never come back. France has lost a piece of its soul and the only people who will ever see the Marie Luise necklace again are black market buyers who'll keep it hidden in a safe rest in peace to France's crown.

40:53 Jewels survived the French Revolution, survived two World Wars, survived two centuries of him. Couldn't survive the louvers in competence. I'm reed, Carter, have a good weekend, lock your doors and maybe don't trust the museum security at major cultural institutions. This is celebrity trials.