Why brazen museum thefts keep happening nearly a year after Louvre heist – BBC News
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Five minutes to steal a Renoir: Why museum thefts are becoming bolder across Europe
Image source: Reuters/Museum Renoir
Image caption: The latest heist, at the Renoir museum in the south of France, saw thieves break in by cutting through a fence with an electric knife and hacksaw
By Mallory Moench
Published 12 September 2026, 01:24 BST
When thieves broke into a French museum earlier this week and stole four paintings by the impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, worth millions of euros, not everyone was surprised. Just last month, the European policing agency (Europol) had warned that museum thefts across Europe were growing increasingly brazen. And just days before the Renoir heist, internationally known art detective Arthur Brand predicted to the BBC that more high-profile burglaries were likely – particularly in the wake of the successful robbery at the Louvre in Paris last October.
The audacious crime in one of the world’s most famous museums stunned France, and the stolen jewellery worth €88m (£75m) has still not been recovered, nearly a year on.
"We will see more of this," says Brand, "because if you are able to hit the Louvre, thieves all around the world are watching that, thinking, ‘Wow’ – and then they think, ‘Don’t we have a local museum with gold and silver?’"
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Figure caption: What we know about the Renoir museum heist
Within hours of the Louvre burglary, thieves had raided coins from a smaller museum in France. Since then, criminals have stolen a diamond necklace in Vienna, Bronze Age artefacts in Spain, and art from two Italian museums – and that’s only what the BBC has written about.
The heist at the Renoir Museum in Cagnes-sur-Mer is the latest, and detectives are still working to track down the remaining multi-million-pound paintings – two of which were quickly recovered after thieves dropped them in the museum garden.
Europol tells the BBC the number of museum theft cases reported to them across Europe began to increase about two years ago. Its recent report says both the methods and targets of thefts are changing – with a rise in more forceful tactics, and, as in the Louvre case, a focus on high-value items such as precious metals and gemstones.
Both Brand and Ibrahim Bulut, a museum security expert from a Belgian security consulting firm, believe many thefts that followed the Louvre burglary are copycats.
"Every museum in the world is stressing now," Brand says. "In every museum there have been meetings with the security officer or with the police."
From tiaras to Bronze Age rings: Stolen museum treasures
Image gallery
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Image source: Musée Renoir / Reuters
Image caption: ‘Madame Colonna Romano’ (1910) by French impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Image source: Musée Renoir / Reuters
Image caption: ‘Jeune Femme au Puits’ (‘Young woman at the well’) (1886) by Renoir
Image source: Louvre Museum
Image caption: The Marie-Louise necklace and a pair of earrings were among the eight items stolen from the Louvre
Image source: Louvre Museum / Reuters
Image caption: A tiara worn by the Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III
Image source: Louvre Museum
Image caption: A large jewel-encrusted bow, which also belonged to the Empress
Image source: Louvre Museum
Image caption: A necklace worn by Queen Marie-Amelie, who was married to King Louis
