The notorious robbery at the Louvre in Paris, on October 19, 2025, unfolded like a scene from a Hollywood movie: a gang of thieves steals a collection of dazzling royal jewels on display in one of the most famous museums in the world.
But with authorities in close pursuit, thieves still have work to do: How to profit from their loot?
Most stolen works are never found. In the art crime courses I teach, I often point out that the recovery rate is less than 10%. This is especially worrying when we consider that between 50,000 and 100,000 works of art are stolen each year around the world (the actual number could be higher due to lack of reporting), the majority of which are stolen in Europe.
That being said, it is quite difficult to profit from stolen works of art. However, the type of items stolen from the Louvre – eight priceless pieces of jewelery – could give these thieves an advantage.
A limited market of buyers
Stolen paintings cannot be sold on the art market because thieves cannot convey what is known as “good title,” the property rights that belong to a legal owner. Furthermore, no reputable auction house or dealer would knowingly sell stolen art, nor would responsible collectors purchase stolen property.
But that doesn’t mean stolen paintings have no value.
In 2002, thieves broke into the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam through the roof and took “View of the Sea in Scheveningen” and “Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.” In 2016, Italian police recovered the artwork, relatively intact, from a mafia hideout in Naples. It is not clear if the mafia actually bought the works, but it is common for criminal organizations to keep valuable assets as collateral.
On other occasions, stolen works end up, without realizing it, in the hands of collectors.
In the 1960s in New York, a Guggenheim Museum employee stole a Marc Chagall painting from a warehouse. The crime was not discovered until years later, when an inventory was carried out. Unable to locate the work, the museum simply removed it from its records.
Meanwhile, collectors Jules and Rachel Lubell purchased the piece for US$17,000 at a gallery. When the couple asked an auction house to review the work for a quote, a former Guggenheim employee at Sotheby’s recognized it as the missing painting.
Guggenheim demanded the return of the painting, triggering a controversial court battle. Eventually, the parties reached an agreement and the painting was returned to the museum after payment of an undisclosed sum to the collectors.
Some people knowingly buy stolen art. After World War II, stolen works circulated on the market, and buyers were fully aware of the widespread looting that had just taken place across Europe.
Over time, international laws were developed that gave the original owners the opportunity to recover looted properties, even decades later. In the United States, for example, the law even allows descendants of the original owners to recover ownership of stolen works, as long as they can present sufficient evidence to prove their claims.
Also read: The president of the Louvre admits that it took a while to detect the arrival of the thieves
Jewelry and gold are easier to monetize
However, the Louvre robbery did not include paintings. The thieves made off with jeweled goods: a sapphire diadem; a necklace and earring from a matching set linked to the 19th-century French queens Marie Amelia and Hortensia; an opulent set of earrings and a necklace that belonged to Empress Marie Louise, second wife of Napoleon Bonaparte; a diamond brooch; and the diadem and bow brooch of Empress Eugenie.
These centuries-old works, exquisitely crafted, have a unique historical and cultural value. But even if each one were broken into pieces and sold for parts, they would still be worth a lot of money. Thieves can sell the gemstones and metals to unscrupulous dealers and jewelers, who could reshape them and sell them. Even at a fraction of their value—the price received for stolen art is always much less than that received for art of legitimate origin—the gems are worth millions of dollars.
While it is difficult to sell stolen goods on the legal market, a black market for looted works of art exists. Pieces can be sold in back rooms, at private meetings, or even on the dark web, where participants cannot be identified. Studies also revealed that stolen, and sometimes counterfeit, art and antiques often appear on mainstream e-commerce sites such as Facebook and eBay. After making a sale, the seller can delete their online store and disappear.
The sensational allure of a robbery
While movies like “The Thomas Crown Affair” feature dramatic heists perpetrated by impossibly attractive bandits, most art crimes are much more mundane.
Art theft is usually an opportunistic crime and does not usually occur in the heavily guarded rooms of cultural institutions, but rather in warehouses or while works are in transit.
Most large museums and cultural institutions do not display all the objects they house. Instead, they remain in warehouses. Less than 10% of the Louvre’s collection is on display at any one time: only about 35,000 of the museum’s 600,000 objects. The rest may remain hidden for years, even decades.
Stored works can be inadvertently lost, such as Andy Warhol’s rare “Princess Beatrice” silkscreen, which was probably accidentally discarded, along with 45 other works, during the renovation of a Dutch town hall, or simply stolen by employees. According to the FBI, about 90% of museum thefts are inside jobs.
In fact, days before the Louvre crime, a work by Picasso valued at $650,000, “Still Life with Guitar,” disappeared during its trip from Madrid to Granada. The painting was part of a shipment that included other works by the Spanish master, but when the packages were opened, the piece was missing. The incident received much less public attention.
For me, the thieves’ biggest mistake was not abandoning the crown they dropped or the vest they threw away, leaving clues for the authorities.
It was rather the brazen nature of the theft, which captured global attention and virtually ensured that French detectives, independent investigators and international law enforcement agencies will be on the lookout for new pieces of gold, gems and royal jewelry offered for sale in the coming years.
*Leila Amineddoleh is Adjunct Professor of Law, New York University
This text was originally published in The Conversation
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