Rare Gold Nuggets Worth $700,000 Stolen From Paris’ Natural History Museum in Brazen Heist
Discovered in their pure metallic form, the specimens were taken by “an extremely professional team,” the museum’s director said
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Thieves stole $700,000 worth of rare gold samples from Paris’ National Museum of Natural History in an overnight heist, officials announced Wednesday.
The theft, which took place early Tuesday morning, was the latest in a series of heists targeting French museums in recent months.
“This comes at a critical time for cultural institutions, particularly museums,” the National Museum of Natural History says in a statement quoted by NBC News’ Peter Guo and Jean-Nicholas Fievet.
Did you know? The largest art heist in history
In 1990, thieves stole 13 artworks valued at more than $500 million from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The heist is considered “the single largest property theft in the world,” according to the museum.The nuggets of gold were taken from the museum’s geology and mineralogy gallery, which holds precious rocks and minerals. The thieves reportedly used a blowtorch and an angle grinder to enter the gallery, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go and with professional equipment,” Emmanuel Skoulios, the museum’s director, tells French broadcaster BFM TV, per a translation by AFP. “It was absolutely no coincidence that they went after these specimens.”
The stolen nuggets are what’s known as native gold, meaning they were discovered in nature in their pure metallic state, without a need for smelting or chemical separation. Native gold is very rare, and no two pieces are the same. The pieces the thieves made off with are “invaluable,” Skoulios tells BFM TV, per the New York Times’ Christine Hauser.
“It’s a natural piece of artwork,” Carlin Green, a geologist at the United States Geological Survey, tells the New York Times of native gold.
Authorities were notified as soon as the museum became aware of the break-in. The affected gallery will remain closed until further notice.
An unidentified police source tells Le Parisien that the museum’s alarm and surveillance systems were the target of a cyberattack that took place in July. It’s unclear whether the alarms were operating correctly when the theft took place, the source adds.
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Museum heists have ticked up in frequency in France over the past few years.
Earlier this month, three Chinese porcelain pieces worth about $11 million—all of which had been designated as “national treasures,” per AFP—were stolen from the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in Limoges.
Last November, in a bold daytime heist, thieves armed with axes stole several valuable 18th-century snuffboxes, including two loaned by the British crown, from the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris.
Paris, one of the world’s premier art destinations, has been subject to numerous high-profile heists over the years. In 1911, the city’s most famous painting, Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, was the target of a theft that catapulted the painting to international fame. The portrait was returned to the Louvre in 1914.