Heist at the Louvre Episode 1: Inside the Glass Cases

On October 19th, 2025, thieves broke into the Louvre Museum in Paris and stole over $100 million worth of Napoleonic-era crown jewels—in broad daylight, in seven minutes, while tourists were standing just feet away. The heist at the most famous museum in the world was over before most people inside even knew it had begun.

The Morning That Changed Everything

The episode opens with ABC News Chief International Correspondent James Longman framing the story through the lens of heist movies—the thrill of Mission: Impossible, Ocean's Eleven, the fantasy of the perfect crime. But as he notes, "what we call a heist in a movie has another name: theft." The distinction matters because the people at the center of this story are not characters in a screenplay.