How Yellow Vests Fooled the World in a Four-Minute Louvre Heist

Natasha Charles

When you happen to see people wearing yellow vests climbing a ladder to a world-class museum, you might barely spare a glance. Not because you find it to be a conventional situation, but because you normally don’t find oddness in mundanity. Your mind might fly to quick and easy assumptions if it even spends a minute wondering about the whole thing. You are quicker to rationalise rather than question, which was certainly convenient for the robbers to be in and out of the Apollo Gallery in under four minutes.

A Risky Trust

Whilst planning one of the greatest heists of the century, they had put a lot of faith in people’s assumptions — or lack thereof. Since we live in a capitalist world where everyone is running after something and has their mind clouded by it, very few stop to question the strangeness of the circumstance. We would naturally attribute neon-coloured vests to safety. A mechanical ladder to construction work, especially if construction was ongoing in that particular area. Scooters are not an infamous transportation for heists either. Nobody’s first thought goes, “I think they are robbing the Louvre.” The more mundane the situation, the better.

Clearly, nothing was left to vagueness in the planning of the heist. A sense of precision carried the project forward. Maybe there were some slip-ups in the act itself (I mean, they could have not dropped the Eugénie Crown or left a string of items behind as evidence), but none concerning the events surrounding it. Although unarmed guards inside the museum became immediately aware, the outside world went about its life with utmost obliviousness. This shows how assuming the most straightforward and self-evident answers can prove dangerous — and even aid planned heists.

The Morally Grey

Fascination and hype over the Louvre heist have been rampant, specifically on social media. People have compared it to the Netflix series Money Heist, even joking about how the robbers must have played the Bella Ciao song on their earphones while escaping. However, this also raises the question: are we glorifying theft, or is the idea of a heist merely enticing?

In a New York Times article, Sloane Crosley compares this heist to the case of Luigi Mangione, saying both might take on a similar “mental shape” when we perceive them. She says this heist might even spark “relief” among people, particularly since it comes during a time of human rights exploitation. I would go further and say people’s love for such incidents might also come from a place of continuous oppression. Some may see it as finally defying people in power who exploit the marginalised — and if there is one thing monarchical jewellery symbolises, it is colonial loot: riches that were stolen and celebrated when countries were stricken with poverty.

One comparison from online debates that I personally loved was to the Ice Court heist from the Six of Crows novel by Leigh Bardugo. Although there are little to no similarities between these two heists, only a real-life Kaz Brekker could have pulled off something as grand as this one. Someone has already written a fanfiction of the Louvre theft featuring “the Crows.” Just saying — if the actual thief was even half as brilliant as Kaz, maybe the evidence left behind was on purpose, to mislead.

Whether from a moral point of view, or a political one, or simply the thrill of it — people are curious.