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| Louvre Museum, Paris, France UPI.com |
"People often believed they were safer in the light, thinking monsters only came out at night. But safety—like light—is a façade."
—C. J. Roberts
Of all the renowned works of art in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France—Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, and the Wedding at Cana—the desire during a 1988 visit with our host, Dr. Paul Orjala, was to see Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. It's the most famous painting in the world, housed in the most visited museum, which welcomed 8.7 million visitors in 2024. (Final figures for 2025 aren't yet available.)
The half-length oil painting on poplar panel of Lisa del Giocondo, a noblewoman born in Florence, Italy, is considered the most highly valued painting, with a Guinness World Records insurance valuation of U.S. $100 million in 1962, equivalent to approximately $1 billion in 2023, according to published reports.
The big theft
On August 20, 1911, a former Louvre employee, Vincenzo Peruggia, hid in a closet overnight and walked out with the Mona Lisa the next morning. Peruggia thought the painting belonged to Italy, not France. He was caught in Florence attempting to sell the painting. This incident drew worldwide attention, instantly boosting the painting's growing notoriety.
"Four suspects used a stolen truck with a vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d'Apollon ..."
One hundred fourteen years later, on October 29, 2025, with the Mona Lisa behind bulletproof glass, it wasn't paintings but jewels that were the object of someone's attention.
The BBC said that the thieves arrived at 9:30 a.m. local time, shortly after the museum opened to the public. Four suspects used a stolen truck with a vehicle-mounted mechanical lift to gain access to the Galerie d'Apollon (Gallery of Apollo) via a balcony near the River Seine.
Pictures from the scene showed the ladder leading up to a first-floor window. (See photo above.) Two of the thieves, wearing yellow safety jackets, gained entry by breaking through the window with power tools. They then threatened the guards, who evacuated the premises, and, using disc grinders, cut through the hammer-proof glass of two display cases containing the rare jewels.
French police say the thieves were inside for four minutes and made their escape on two scooters waiting outside at 9:38 a.m.
New details
Four people have been arrested and charged with carrying out the robbery. It remains unclear whether other people were involved in or directed the heist.
Newly released surveillance video on French television TF1 shows the jewel heist unfolding inside the Louvre Museum as guards huddle in a corner, unsure how to respond.
The New York Times reported that the stolen items, not yet recovered, include an emerald necklace and earrings from Empress Marie Louise, a sapphire diadem, a sapphire necklace and earring set, a reliquary brooch, and two items belonging to Empress Eugénie—her tiara and a large corsage-bow brooch, all valued at $102 million.
Museum director Laurence des Cars stated that a diamond- and emerald-studded crown, which the burglars damaged and dropped as they fled on Sunday, could be restored.
Three days after thieves robbed the Louvre of its prized jewels, AFP News reported that the museum's director admitted to inadequate exterior camera surveillance.
"Of the two cameras near the scene, only one was operational," said Noël Corbin, an inspector at the ministry who led the investigation. "Still, it was sufficient, despite its poor quality, to allow for preparations for the burglary to be seen."
Is anything safe?
Any system can be vulnerable.
John Chambers, former executive chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, is quoted as saying that there are only two types of organizations: "Those that have been hacked and those that don't know it yet."
Crowdstrike, the software security company, reports that hackers use AI to automate various phases of an attack, lower the barrier to entry for less-skilled criminals, and make attacks harder to detect.
The Louvre contains over 380,000 objects and displays 35,000 works of art. According to French historian Patrice de Moncan, the Louvre building and its contents are worth $45 billion.
France's state auditor issued a damaging assessment of the Louvre in 2024, revealing that the museum spent $121 million on art acquisitions between 2018 and 2024, while allocating only $26.7 million for maintenance and security over the same period.
Those auditors say the Louvre's security system upgrades are not scheduled for completion until 2032.
Scattering the mind
What else is in danger of theft?
"It's a war for consumers' attention that's being waged on the portable computer in your pocket," says D. Graham Burnett, a professor of history at Princeton University and co-editor of Sciences of Attention: Essays on the Mind, Time and Senses.
"These are largely unregulated systems, at work on children and adults alike, constantly aiming to manipulate what we see and want ..."
Professor Burnett says this is part of a sophisticated data surveillance operation that seeks to monetize, or profit from, tiny movements of our eyes or minds, regardless of any impairment to the rest of our being.
Time to think, reflect, ponder, be creative, or daydream is at the mercy of technology's pings. It's one thing to give attention to worthy causes, another for it to be stolen without protest.
"It fuels the six largest corporations of the globe (i.e., Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia), representing $19 trillion in market capitalization," Burnett adds. "The rise of super-powerful AI intelligence marks an epochal escalation in this already staggering project," he concludes.
Thieves, indeed.
"These are largely unregulated systems, at work on children and adults alike, constantly aiming to manipulate what we see and want; they constitute nothing less than a bio-hack at the scale of the Earth's population," writes former Google ad strategist, James Williams.
Meta Platforms and YouTube are facing more than 3,000 lawsuits alone in California over the central question: Are these and other platforms, such as Instagram, causing mental health disorders? TikTok and Snap settled before the first trial began.
"There's such a fatigue with screens, algorithms, and micro-trends," said Casey Lewis, the author of After School, a newsletter focused on youth consumer trends. "There's a yearning for what many people remember at a slower pace," Lewis added.
French lawmakers recently approved a bill banning children under 15 from accessing social media. This follows Australia's ban on those aged 16 and under from accessing platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
Even though technology remains essential for many tasks and society is now designed for digital engagement, people are reducing their use due to burnout, anxiety, and poor focus. This pullback aims to regain attention, improve well-being, and strengthen real-life relationships, according to published reports.
Like the valuables stolen from the Louvre Museum in Paris, what we lose of our humanity to an insincere world is irreplaceable.
To help us make sound judgments quickly, we need to keep our personal security cameras fully charged and pointed in the right direction.
Strategist.com
© Bredholt & Co.
