The Louvre just found itself in a real-life heist movie.
Minutes after opening Oct. 19, the famed Parisian museum—the world’s most visited—was broken into, with a group of four thieves walking away with nine pieces of France’s crown jewels.
The heist, according to NBC News, citing officials, was executed with a monte-meuble—a truck with an aerial lift often used to move furniture to the upper levels of a building. The thieves navigated to the balcony outside the Galerie d’Apollon and sliced through the window to gain entry.
They threatened the museum staff with angle-grinders—a tool used for grinding and polishing—then smashed the jewels’ display cases, officials said, taking necklaces, tiaras and brooches, all within seven minutes. Authorities confirmed there were no injuries among the museum’s staff.
Among the objects taken was an emerald and diamond necklace and matching earrings Napoleon Bonaparte gave to his wife Marie Louise as well as a sapphire necklace by Napoleon’s stepdaughter Hortense.
The Crown of Empress Eugénie, empress to Napoleon III in the 19th century, was also taken. Officials said the crown—which features eight gold eagles, 1,354 diamonds, 1,136 rose-cut diamonds and 56 emeralds—was found damaged near the scene after the thieves dropped it as they escaped on scooters.
The jewelry has “sentimental value and is priceless,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said.
However, Chris Marinello, the chief executive of Art Recovery International—which specializes in locating stolen jewelry—noted if the pieces are not found within 24 to 48 hours, they are “long gone.”
"There is a race going on right now," he told the BBC World Service's Newshour, adding the thieves "are not going to keep them intact. They are going to break them up, melt down the valuable metal, recut the valuable stones and hide evidence of their crime.”
Police, he said, " may catch the criminals but they won't recover the jewels."
The museum has remained closed since the heist, with President Emmanual Macron stressing the importance of locating the stolen goods.
“The theft committed at the Louvre is an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our History,” he shared in an Oct. 19 statement. “We will recover the works, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice.”
(NBC News and E! News are both part of NBCUniversal.)