PARIS — PARIS (AP) — Thieves entered the Louvre from the surface utilizing a basket elevate on Sunday and made away with priceless jewels, France’s inside minister stated, because the museum closed for the day.

Inside Minister Laurent Nuñez known as it a “main theft.” He stated on France Inter that people “entered from the surface utilizing a basket elevate,” stole jewels of “inestimable worth,” and that the operation “lasted seven minutes.”

It was “manifestly a workforce that had completed scouting,” he stated, including that the panes had been reduce “with a disc cutter.”

The Louvre stated it might shut “for distinctive causes,” providing no additional particulars on the heist. No accidents had been reported.

Video from the scene confirmed chaotic crowds of vacationers as police closed the museum’s gates and close by roads main previous the palace complicated.

French day by day Le Parisien reported that the criminals entered the world’s most visited museum and former palace by way of the Seine-facing facade, the place building is underway. The report stated they used a freight elevator to achieve direct entry to the focused room within the Apollo Gallery.

After breaking home windows, they reportedly stole “9 items from the jewelry assortment of Napoleon and the Empress,” Le Parisien stated. Le Parisien additionally reported that one of many stolen jewels was later discovered outdoors the museum. The paper stated it was believed to be Empress Eugénie’s crown and that it had been damaged.

The Louvre has a protracted historical past of thefts and tried robberies. Essentially the most well-known was in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its body, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia, a former employee who hid contained in the museum and walked out with the portray underneath his coat. It was recovered two years later in Florence — an episode that helped make Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait the world’s best-known paintings.

In 1983, two Renaissance-era items of armor had been stolen from the Louvre and solely recovered practically 4 many years later. The museum’s assortment additionally bears the legacy of Napoleonic-era looting that continues to spark restitution debates as we speak.

The Louvre is house to greater than 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture and portray — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to European masters. Its star points of interest embody the Mona Lisa, in addition to the Venus de Milo and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

The Galerie d’Apollon, the place Sunday’s theft reportedly befell, shows a collection of the French Crown Jewels.

The museum can draw as much as 30,000 guests a day.