Museum heists, particularly ones involving historic and valuable items, have shocked the world and inspired mystery and suspicion for more than a century.
In the latest incident of valuable stolen goods, four suspected thieves dressed as construction workers allegedly broke into one of the most famous art museums in the world, Paris’ Louvre Museum, on Sunday morning, taking at least nine pieces of jewelry, some of which were previously owned by Emperor Napoleon I and his second wife, Empress Marie-Louise, according to officials.
French officials have since launched an investigation into the robbery. So far, no suspects have been identified publicly.
Prior to the robbery, the Cour des Comptes — France’s supreme auditing institution — was looking into security at the Louvre. The court’s report, expected to be published in a few weeks, notes a significant delay in the “deployment of equipment intended to ensure the protection of works” within the Louvre, according to a copy seen by ABC News.
ABC News has reached out to the Louvre for comment.
In an interview Monday with ABC News, France’s Minister of Culture Rachida Dati said it is “complex” to secure buildings in France like the Louvre because they are “historic monuments.”
In a social media post Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron called the robbery “an attack on a heritage that we cherish because it is our history.”
“We will recover the works and the perpetrators will be brought to justice. Everything is being done, everywhere, to achieve this, under the leadership of the Paris public prosecutor’s office,” he added.
As the investigation unfolds, take a look back at some of the most notable museum heists of the past 120 years, including stolen Van Goghs, the 1911 robbery of the Mona Lisa, and one that resulted in half a billion dollar’s worth of stolen art.
The $500 million Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft
Empty frames from which thieves took “Storm on the Sea of Galilee,” left background, by Rembrandt and “The Concert,” right foreground, by Vermeer, remain on display at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, March 11, 2010.
Josh Reynolds/AP, FILE
Known widely as the single-largest art heist in modern history, the March 1990 Isabella Street Gardner heist rocked the art world and continues to be an event shrouded in mystery and unanswered questions over 30 years later.
According to the FBI, the thieves arrived at the museum on March 18, 1990, dressed as police officers and pretending to attend to a disturbance call at the site.
After tying up the security guards on premise, the men spent over one hour and 20 minutes scouring the museum, ultimately making off with 13 works of art valued at $500 million in 1990.
According to the FBI, this marks the largest property crime in U.S. history.
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum calls the theft “an active and ongoing investigation.”
Among the stolen works is Rembrandt van Rijn’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” Édouard Manet’s “Chez Tortoni,” and Johannes Vermeer’s “The Concert.”
The 2002 Van Gogh Museum robbery
A view of the Van Gogh Museum building in Amsterdam, Sept. 1, 2025.
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
In December 2002, two agile thieves robbed Amsterdam’s Vincent Van Gogh Museum by scaling a ladder to the roof of the building and breaking into the venue, according to the FBI.
The thieves targeted two Van Gogh works, “View of the Sea at Scheveningen” and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.”
The thieves were convicted of the crime by Dutch authorities in 2003, but authorities came up emptyhanded while trying to recover the stolen works, according to the FBI.
Over a decade later in 2016, the paintings resurfaced when the “Guardia di Finanza, a special Italian police force, found them in Naples during a major investigation of organized crime,” according to the museum’s website.
The American Museum of Natural History jewel heist
The American Museum of Natural History in New York, Oct. 1, 1963.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
In 1964, two men snuck into the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, entering through a fire escape leading to an open window, and pulled off a jewel heist of grand proportion, stealing several gems worth nearly half a million dollars at the time, including the Star of India, a 563.35-carat sapphire.
The men and their accomplice, who served as a lookout during the heist, were later arrested, and the lead burglar, Jack Roland Murphy, would go on to assume the infamous nickname “Murph the Surf.” (The incident went on to inspire the 1975 film “Murph the Surf.”)
Some of the jewels were eventually recovered after the men negotiated with prosecutors to retrieve them, though others were never found.
Each of the men was sentenced to three years in prison for the ordeal.
‘The Scream’ painting stolen in Oslo
The Munch painting “Scream” at the Norwegian National Gallery in Oslo, Norway, June 7, 2006.
Knut Falch/SCANPIX/AFP via Getty Images
On Feb. 12, 1994, the late Edvard Munch’s world renowned painting “The Scream” was nabbed from the National Gallery, Oslo, in Norway. Pål Enger, a now-notorious art thief, and an accomplice famously stole the painting while the nation was transfixed on the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.
After Enger was caught that same year, the painting was returned to the museum with little damage. Enger was sentenced to six years and three months in prison for the theft.
Enger, who later took up art himself while in prison, died in 2024.
Vincenzo Peruggia’s 1911 Heist of the Mona Lisa
Crowds of tourists take photos of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa inside the Louvre Museum in Paris, June 7, 2024.
Antoine Boureau/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images
Perhaps the most famous museum heist of all time came by way of Vincenzo Peruggia, a former Louvre employee who stole the Mona Lisa from the the Louvre in 1911 by hiding in the museum and walking out with the painting under his clothes.
The theft confounded Paris for two years until an Italian art dealer alerted authorities that Peruggia had tried to sell him the famous art piece, resulting in the recovery of the work and Peruggia’s arrest.
