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A tongue-in-cheek advert for the crane utilized by the Louvre robbers has boasted of being ‘quiet as a whisper’ with the gang still on the run.
‘When it’s good to move fast’ is the brand new slogan for the corporate Böcker, seeking to money in on the getaway vehicle’s success in allowing the robbers to flee with €88m (£76m) price of Napoleonic jewellery on Sunday.
The crane can carry ‘as much as 400kg of treasures at 42m per minute – as quiet as a whisper’, it says alongside an image of the prolonged arm reaching to the primary floor of the world’s hottest gallery.
Alexander Boecker, CEO of Crane Manufacturer Boecker, went ahead with the advert the subsequent day in a bid to prove that Germans have a way of humour ‘in spite of everything’.
‘We heard in regards to the robbery on the Louvre on Sunday and were in a position to determine relatively quickly that it was our inclined lift that the perpetrators had used’, Boecker said.
‘Once it became clear that nobody had been harmed, we began getting an increasing number of texts from employees asking, ‘Have you ever seen this? What do you think that?’ After which my wife and I began brainstorming a bit on Saturday.
‘After which my wife had the concept for when things have to be done quickly. So we acquired the image on Monday morning, or quite the licence for it, and said we’d post it on Instagram, Facebook and later LinkedIn, hoping that everybody would get the joke and never take the entire thing too seriously.’
Nevertheless it’s gone down like a cup of cold sick in France after it emerged the Louvre’s cameras didn’t detect burglars in time to stop their ‘national humiliation’.
It got here as footage from outside the Louvre showed the jewellery thieves making their escape within the least subtle way possible.
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The pair, one in a hi-vis jacket and the opposite in a bike helmet, are seen gently lowering themselves from a balcony, looking more like maintenance employees than criminal masterminds from a heist film.
A voice, possibly that of a museum security guard, is heard saying: ‘The individuals are on scooters, they’re going to leave.’
Mere seconds later, the 2 men will be seen heading away on two scooters.
The voice then says: ‘Blast! Try the police. They’ve gone!’ together with several swear words.
This video has gathered much attention on social media, with many amused at how easy the getaway appears.
One Facebook user said: ‘They’ve earned all of the loot they’ve gained.’
One other commented: ‘They watched too many heist movies and realised how easy it was to.’
Someone drew a comparison between a mass jewellery heist to not paying for a supermarket carrier bag: ‘Mad how crown jewels get stolen no problem.. yet you get stopped by security to make sure that you’ve paid 10p for ya bag to hold your stolen loot out the shop.’
The vehicle lift used was carjacked by the thieves nine days before the ‘heist of the last decade’.
A rental service worker was preparing at hand over a Mitsubishi Canter Fuso truck fitted with a 90-foot ladder to a driver when two men arrived on a bike and confronted them.
The suspects reportedly threatened the driving force before certainly one of them fled the scene within the truck.
(Picture: DIMITAR DILKOFF/AFP via Getty Images)
The rental firm boss, who wishes to stay anonymous, told the Telegraph: ‘We’ve got nothing to do with this. It’s bothersome.’
He also said he didn’t know where the vehicle had gone until he saw it on the news, which is when he informed the police.
The thieves apparently didn’t intend for the lift truck to be left intact, as suggested by the petrol container left behind. It was the safety guards who deterred them from doing so.
Yesterday evening, the director of the Louvre museum, Laurence des Cars, spoke publicly for the primary time after the audacious heist.
The hearing lasted two hours, which consisted of several revelations.
Seven key takeaways from Louvre hearing
- The thieves weren’t spotted early enough by the museum to stop the robbery
- CCTV across the perimeter of the Louvre was weak and ‘aging’ on account of a ‘chronic underinvestment in equipment and infrastructure’
- Des Cars called herself a whistleblower because she warned how ‘obsolete’ the equipment was when she took over in 2021
- The one camera monitoring the targeted Gallery of Apollo was pointing away from the balcony that the thieves climbed over
- She hopes work to enhance security will begin at the beginning of 2026
- She offered to resign from her role after the heist but it surely was rejected
- Certainly one of the eight items stolen – a diadem that after belonged to Empress Eugenie – was recovered, but damaged. An initial report suggests restoration is feasible.
The remainder of the stolen jewels are yet to be found, with growing concerns that they’re long gone.
The French government has confirmed the objects weren’t covered by private insurance, meaning they’ll not be reimbursed for any losses.
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