Author: King Feng Shui
One cold morning, four masked men used a lift to climb the balcony of the Louvre Museum in Paris, France, in broad daylight, and used an angle grinder to cut open the window glass.
Two face-to-face men entered the exhibition hall and packed eight precious jewelry artifacts from the Napoleonic era. Then they joined up with the receivers waiting outside, riding two motorcycles and quickly disappeared without a trace.
The entire process lasted less than seven minutes.
This is not a movie script, but a real scene that took place on October 19.According to the French Ministry of Culture, the jewelry robbed this time included crowns, necklaces, earrings and brooches, with a total value of 88 million euros (1 euro is equivalent to RMB)$8 to $27）。French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to reclaim the treasure, describing the case as “an attack on our common (cultural) heritage.”
Who did this big case that shocked the world? Various signs point to a gang of habitual criminals-the "Pink Panthers".
Public information shows that the "* Leopard" organization was established in the mid-1990s, and most of its members are European veterans. Since their establishment, they have carried out about 380 robberies worldwide, involving a total amount of more than 400 million euros.
The police suspected the pink leopard because the kidnapping was similar to the previous one.
At 9:30 a.m. on the day of the crime, passers-by found a trailer equipped with a lifting platform parked on the outer wall of the Louvre on the banks of the Seine.
·The exterior wall of the crime site. (Photo by Xu Jie)
“These robbers must have stepped in advance, carefully planned,” Chinese travel law scholar Xu Jiu told reporters from around the world, “because you have to be extremely familiar with the Louvre’s internal structure in order to quickly get straight to the core – the Apollo Corridor.”
"According to the opening time and regular visiting route of the Louvre, it is almost impossible for tourists to get there at 9: 30 if they don't take the elevator, unless they fully understand the elevator distribution and path planning in the museum. In addition, the window faces the river, with neither guardrails nor explosion-proof glass, which is the most vulnerable link in the whole security system of the Louvre."
·The suspected robber was evacuated from the elevator with stolen goods. (Screenshot of eyewitness video)
According to surveillance footage, the robbers who broke into the Apollo Promenade pried open the glass cabinet, and the entire operation was "as precise as surgery."
What is even more shocking is that the looting images circulated on the Internet did not come from surveillance, but were taken secretly by security personnel who were threatened by the robbers and did not dare to come forward, using mobile phones in the corner. This "forced control" method of committing crimes in a surveillance blind area and forcing security personnel to be unable to intervene is exactly the same as the "Pink Panther" method in many previous cases.
"Real body"
The name of the "Pink Panthers" gang comes from the Hollywood crime series "The Pink Panthers".
Back in the middle of May 2003, two men robbed a luxury jewelry store in London’s New Bond Street and, in less than three minutes, robbed some $30 million worth of jewelry and quickly disappeared on the streets of London.
A few days later, the British police found a bottle of apparently normal cream in a suspect’s home with a blue diamond ring hidden in it.
Because this is highly similar to the plot in the fourth movie of * Leopard, the media named this mysterious and rampant robbery gang "* Leopard".
In the spring of 2004, two members of the Pink Panther, wearing glasses, broke into a jewelry store in Tokyo's Silverstone, Japan, after using pepper spray uniforms, they stole jewelry worth about $33 million in just a few minutes.
In 2008, a similar "drama" took place in Dubai, where eight members of the Pink Panther drove two Audi cars directly into a jewelry store, robbing $12.5 million worth of bills and jewelry.
In the same year, four male members of the Pink Panther dressed in female clothes robbed a jewelry store in Paris in 57 seconds, and jewelry worth about $3.4 million suddenly disappeared.
For decades, "* Leopard" has committed crimes in 35 countries and regions around the world, but few people have been arrested. They are also known as "the most notorious jewel robbers in the world".
·Members of the “Pink Leopard” arrested (Metro)
In 2014, Interpol revealed that members of the “Pink Leopard” hadHundreds of people,Most of them come from the Balkans.
In the 1990s, the post-war Balkans were subject to Western sanctions, resulting in local social unrest and public security chaos, which also resulted in a group of veterans who could not be resettled. It is in this environment that the "Pink Panther" organization grew up. The members had the goal of "going to the West to find wealth", but the method they chose was to rob jewelry, take the stolen money back to their poor hometown, and invest in hotels, real estate and other industries.
Due to special historical reasons, the "Pink Panther" has been sheltered by local people in the Balkans, which is one of the reasons why it is difficult for Interpol to eradicate it.
In 2007, Interpol specially set up a “Rose Leopard Team” and established an office in its place of origin to facilitate the investigation.
However, after the "Pink Panther" members were arrested, they all kept silent about the inside story of the organization.
Zhao Yong Li, PhD student tutor at Sorbonne University in Paris, frequently travels to China and France, and has talked with the Louvre Museum's senior staff to discuss heritage conservation issues.The division of work is clear.The entire chain is highly “specialized”.
“The members of the organization work hard to accomplish the ‘tasks’, the division of work is fine, and more specialized in ‘whitening’, the evidence is very difficult to find; they replace case tools and demolitions are fast, and the police are almost difficult to track; they even drill legal vulnerabilities by means of manipulation, replacement of identities and fingerprints.”Zhao continues to say.
“In organizations, someone is responsible for collecting intelligence and even hiding for years, researching the escape lines. In addition, the organization does not have a high frequency of acts, but every vote is a big case, and many members basically do a single hidden name, which makes it harder for them to expose their identities.”
According to the analysis of barrie phillips, the retired chief superintendent in charge of detective affairs in the UK, "* Leopard handles stolen goods quickly-dismantling jewelry, melting precious metals and reshaping its appearance … Although this will devalue jewelry, the remaining value is still huge."
In addition, with the development of high technology, the modus operandi of "* Leopard" makes museums and other institutions hard to guard against.
"Compared with the technical means of criminal organizations, some management methods of museums lag behind. If someone enters the museum with drones and other tools, the related equipment can't even be found out." Zhao Yongsheng said, "The theft of the Louvre is not only a wake-up call to France, but also a severe test of the global cultural heritage protection mechanism and concept.How to balance between openness and security is a common challenge facing museums around the world.”