On 19 October, a gang of thieves entered the Louvre Museum and stole eight items from France’s Crown Jewels, valued at around $156 million. To date, four people have been arrested and charged in relation to the heist; however, investigators have yet to recover the missing treasure.
According to a recent Reuters report, investigators suspect the jewellery may have been transported to Belgium for processing by a criminal network operating in Antwerp’s iconic diamond district.
The report included extensive commentary from anonymous local police officers, noting that while the city has become a hotspot for fencing stolen luxury goods, successfully shifting something as immediately recognisable as jewellery that once belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte was a challenging task.
“Selling stolen jewels is quick and easy in Antwerp, the two Antwerp police said. Jewellers inspect gold, stones or watches, name a price and pay from undeclared cash reserves,” the report explains.
“Once bought, items vanish. In back-room smelters no bigger than a printer, gold is melted into one-kilo bricks about the size of a cellphone, they said. The Louvre loot may be too hot for even the Antwerp jewellers to handle, one of the cops said.
“The jewels were mainly set in silver, not gold, giving them low melt value. Their oversized sapphires and diamonds are instantly recognisable, so the small circle of Antwerp cutters and polishers won't touch them. The pool of potential buyers for the pearls is tiny.”
In other news, the diamond and emerald-studded crown of Empress Eugénie will reportedly undergo a complete restoration. The crown was found damaged outside the Louvre after the robbery, supposedly abandoned by the crooks as they fled.
A diamond brooch once owned by Napoleon recently appeared at auction, fetching $USD4.4 million ($AUD6.74 million) after 10 minutes of bidding – a price 17 times higher than the pre-sale estimate.
In a New York Times report, Sotheby’s Andres White Correal said it was difficult to determine whether the price had been driven up by the recent incident at the Louvre. With that said, he said that, regardless of collectors' motivations, it was horrifying to think that such a historically significant jewellery collection could end up in the wrong hands.
“The pain that they’re not going to be retrieved intact — they’re just going to be broken up — underlines the fact that any jewellery that is 220 years old is a precious thing in itself just because of having survived in its original form to this day,” White Correal said.
Another contributor to the report was Alessandro Borruso, a jewellery expert in London, who took a more assertive stance, suggesting that the value of Napoleon's jewellery would undoubtedly rise because of increased scarcity.
More reading
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