Once you’re executed binge-watching OTT thrillers like Lupin and Money Heist, and your adrenaline continues to be searching for a brand new season, don’t fear, real-life simply one-upped-fiction, in Paris, no much less. Less than every week in the past, the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, was robbed in broad daylight, throughout opening hours, with eight of France’s priceless Crown Jewels vanishing into skinny air. As the world nonetheless reels from Paris’s newest cinematic-style heist, right here’s a glance again at 4 different wild robberies from historical past that have been simply as daring, weird, and brilliantly executed.
5 unbelievable heists from around the world
The Louvre jewelry heist, Paris
The world’s most visited museum simply bought robbed. On a crisp Parisian morning on 19 October, 2025, 4 thieves in building vests clocked in early for a special sort of shift. At 9:30am, they rolled up in a vehicle-mounted carry, ascended the façade of the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, broke a window with slicing instruments on the first ground, and smashed open the show instances holding eight items of France’s Crown Jewels, price a cool €88 million.
In a heist that lasted beneath eight minutes (4 of these spent inside the museum), they made off with an emerald necklace and earrings as soon as worn by Empress Marie Louise, sapphire units belonging to Queen Marie-Amélie and Queen Hortense, and a tiara and brooch of Empress Eugénie, with the crown later being discovered broken, apparently dropped mid-getaway.
The culprits tried to torch their carry basket on the means out however have been thwarted by a museum staffer. Moments later, they zipped off on scooters alongside the Seine, abandoning smashed glass, surprised safety, and the lingering query: how do you pull off one of history’s most audacious daylight robberies at the Louvre, throughout opening hours, no much less?
The Mona Lisa heist, Paris
This fascinating story dates again to 1911, when small-time Italian artwork thief Vincenzo Peruggia quietly walked out of Paris’ Louvre with the well-known portray neatly tucked beneath his garments. Long earlier than excessive safety and CCTV cameras, Peruggia used his handyman standing at the museum to stroll previous the typical museum employees, ready till the gallery that homes the Mona Lisa was empty and quietly made off with Da Vinci’s most well-known portray.
This little act of artwork theft is what’s widely believed to have catapulted the Mona Lisa’s fame. When the museum opened every week after the theft, there have been serpentine traces of guests exterior the Louvre all ready to get a glimpse of the place the Mona Lisa was taken from. The portray apparently sat for 2 years in a trunk, earlier than Peruggia contacted an artwork vendor in Florence, providing to return the now-famous portray to its ‘homeland.’ The police have been alerted, the portray was acquired and Peruggia was imprisoned for six months earlier than being conscripted into the Italian military throughout WWI.
The nice prepare theft, United Kingdom
This wild prepare heist was a finely orchestrated operation in 1963 to intercept a Royal Mail prepare full of high-value packages from Glasgow to London. The prepare was carrying a big quantity of money in its second automobile, owing to the proven fact that it had been a financial institution vacation weekend in Scotland. A crew of 15 males and some accomplices stole 120 sacks of banknotes price £2.6 million (about US$7 million or 51 crore rupees at the time) from the second automobile—a heist recognized as we speak as the Great Train Robbery. Eventually, fingerprints have been discovered on a bottle of ketchup and a Monopoly recreation the males had performed with some of the notes they’d stolen.