While the investigation into the Oct. 19 heist at the Louvre in Paris continues, scrutiny has taken aim at the iconic museum’s security measures — or lack thereof. The heist resulted in the theft of several of France’s crown jewels, with the value of the looted items estimated to be more than $100 million. Though this is one of the most notable heists in the Louvre’s history, it’s also not the first. Now, some are wondering whether it’s time to reinforce the museum’s defenses.
Several factors at fault
The elaborate robbery, which involved thieves dressed as workers and an electric cherry picker, has “raised significant questions about whether one of the world’s most famous museums could have been better protected,” said The New York Times. Much of the blame has been placed on the Louvre’s security camera system; the exterior of the museum is “surrounded by cameras,” but there “were not enough officers to continuously monitor the feeds.”
Other factors include the museum’s ongoing construction, which experts say could have provided an opening for the thieves. Several “labor unions at the Louvre said they had warned that continual renovations, repair work and scaffolding for fund-raising events done on or around the museum made it hard for employees to spot suspicious behavior.” The “more we have exterior people working around the Louvre, the harder it is to differentiate who should be there,” Julien Dunoyer, a 21-year veteran of the Louvre’s security team, told the Times.
There were warnings prior to the crime. The museum’s “security systems were rated as outdated and inadequate by an official report written before the theft of crown jewels,” said The Times of London. There are also several areas within the Louvre not covered by security monitors. In the “Denon wing, where the Apollo Gallery that was targeted by the robbers is located, a third of the rooms have no CCTV cameras,” though the specific room the thieves looted did have cameras, officials said.
The future
Security updates may happen not only in France but in museums across the world, as the heist “should lead all institutions that hold valuable items to assess their security measures,” said Northeastern Global News. Even many “up-to-date technologies need to be assessed against the low-tech methods that the Louvre thieves used.” The “robbery may rewrite museum security protocols,” Nikos Passas, a professor of criminology and criminal justice and co-director of Northeastern’s Institute for Security and Public Policy, told the outlet.
The Louvre does have planned security upgrades. But there are more simplistic ideas available. While “modern museum security is a complex and expensive affair,” there is “also an intriguing 50-year-old mathematical problem that deals with this very issue,” said BBC News. It involves calculating the “minimum number of guards — or equivalently 360-degree CCTV cameras — needed in order to keep a whole museum under observation.” As museums “look again at their own security in the wake of the Louvre heist, it can do no harm to be reminded of the lessons this 50-year-old mathematical problem has to offer.”
Millions of dollars in jewels were stolen from the museum
