Paris: Thieves have broken into the Natural History Museum in Paris, escaping with native gold specimens valued at around €600,000 ($700,000). The incident adds to a string of recent robberies targeting cultural institutions across France.

How did the break-in happen?

The theft was discovered on Tuesday morning after intruders forced their way into the museum’s geology and mineralogy gallery, located in the city’s 5th district. Reports suggest they used an angle grinder and a blow torch to enter the building, which is a popular destination for tourists and Parisians alike.

“The theft concerns several specimens of native gold from the national collections held by the museum,” the museum’s press office confirmed.

Although the stolen items are worth around €600,000 at raw gold prices, the museum stressed that they hold “an immeasurable heritage value.”

Native gold refers to a natural alloy of gold and silver in its unrefined state.

According to Le Parisien, a police source revealed that the museum’s alarm and surveillance systems had been disabled during a cyberattack in July. It is still unclear whether those systems were functional at the time of the robbery.

Museum director Emmanuel Skoulios told BFM TV, “We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go, and with professional equipment.” He added that “it is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items.”

What treasures were taken?

The mineralogy gallery, which has now been closed, is still being checked for additional losses. Among its most prized possessions is a native gold and quartz specimen from the Donatia mine in California, measuring nine by 8.5 centimetres, which was gifted by a French collector.

A pattern of cultural heists

The museum warned that this robbery “comes at a critical time for cultural institutions and museums in particular. Several public collections have indeed been targeted by thefts in recent months.”

Earlier this month, the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in Limoges was also hit, with thieves stealing two Chinese porcelain dishes and a vase considered national treasures. Losses were valued at €6.5 million.

In November last year, armed thieves wielding axes and baseball bats looted the Cognacq-Jay Museum in Paris in broad daylight, stealing several 18th-century works. Just a day later, jewellery worth millions of euros was stolen during an armed raid on a museum in Saône-et-Loire.

The most infamous case remains the 2010 robbery at Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne, when burglar Vjeran Tomic, dubbed “Spiderman”, stole works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Léger and Modigliani worth over €100 million. The heist exposed shocking security lapses, including broken motion alarms and guards who failed to notice him. Tomic was eventually sentenced to eight years in prison in 2017.

AFP