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Thieves Steal $700,000 Worth of Gold From Paris Natural History Museum

The theft of irreplaceable gold and quartz specimens is the latest in a string of high-profile museum heists across France.

A museum spokesperson has declared a “critical time for cultural institutions” in France after thieves stole rare gold samples worth around $700,000 from the National History Museum in Paris. The incident is the latest in a spate of thefts targeting museums across France. The museum said the loss was of “immeasurable heritage value,” on top of the pieces’ high monetary worth.

The thieves used an angle grinder and a blow torch to break into the museum in the early hours of Tuesday, September 17. They made off with several specimens in the galleries of geology and mineralogy belonging to France’s national collection but held at the museum.

The heist was detected later that day by cleaning staff.

The galleries remain closed to the public, according to the museum’s website. Security has been increased and staff are checking the collection for other losses.

“We are dealing with an extremely professional team, perfectly aware of where they needed to go, and with professional equipment,” the museum’s director Emmanuel Skoulios told BFM TV. “It is absolutely not by chance that they went for these specific items.”

No arrests have yet been reported. The Paris police service did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

Among the many treasures taken was a native gold and quartz sample measuring about 3 by 3.5 inches, which had been found in a Donatia mine in California. It was donated to the museum by a French collector. Native gold is gold in its natural state and is prized for its rarity and its beautiful, organic shape.

“The museum laments this inestimable loss for research, heritage, and for a collection accessible to the public,” said a spokesperson.

The museum, which sits on the banks of the Seine in Paris’s Fifth Arrondissement, was established during the French Revolution as the country embraced science over religious orthodoxy. Its Gallery of Mineralogy was constructed in the 1830s and contains over 600,000 stones and fossils.

The museum’s spokesperson noted that the heist comes after “several public collection shave been targeted by thefts in recent months,” according to Le Monde. It said that now is a “critical time for cultural institutions and museums” in France.

These comments likely referred to a break in at the Adrien Dubouché National Museum in Limoges earlier this month. The intruders managed to escape with two 14th- and 15th-century dishes and one 18th century vase of Chinese porcelain, together worth an estimated $11.2 million. The museum closed for seven days while the police initiated their investigation but no arrests have yet been reported.

Late last year, a team of axe-wielding thieves pulled a brazen daytime theft at the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris, making off with treasures worth more than $1 million. Two of the pieces were on loan from the British Crown, leading to a nearly $4 million insurance payout to the U.K.’s Royal Collection Trust.

By Jo Lawson-Tancred.

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