El robo perpetrado este domingo en el museo del Louvre no fue obra de la improvisación. Fue una operación meticulosamente planificada que combinó velocidad, precisión y aprovechamiento de vulnerabilidades específicas del recinto. En apenas siete minutos, un grupo de ladrones logró sustraer nueve piezas de las joyas de la corona francesa, dejando un rastro que revela tanto su preparación como su audacia.

Los asaltantes identificaron su oportunidad en la fachada que da al Sena, donde actualmente se realizan trabajos de renovación. Esta zona, habitualmente menos vigilada por estar en obras, se convirtió en el talón de Aquiles del museo más visitado del mundo. Los delincuentes utilizaron un montacargas o plataforma elevadora —el mismo tipo de equipo que se emplea para transportar muebles— para acceder directamente al primer piso, donde se encuentra la Galería de Apolo, que exhibe una selección de las Joyas de la Corona Francesa.

“Claramente era un equipo que había hecho reconocimiento previo”, declaró el ministro del Interior, Laurent Nuñez, en France Inter.

La elección del punto de acceso no fue casual: les permitió llegar directamente a su objetivo sin tener que recorrer las extensas salas del museo.

Una vez en posición, los ladrones emplearon cortadoras de disco —también conocidas como amoladoras angulares— para romper los cristales de protección. Estas herramientas eléctricas, capaces de cortar vidrio reforzado en cuestión de segundos, fueron fundamentales para la rapidez de la operación.

Según las autoridades, el grupo estaba compuesto por al menos tres personas completamente encapuchadas. Dos de ellas ingresaron al museo y ejecutaron el robo, mientras una tercera permaneció como apoyo en el exterior. La división de roles sugiere un nivel de organización propio del crimen organizado, según las autoridades francesas.

Los asaltantes sustrajeron nueve piezas de la colección de joyas de Napoleón y la emperatriz Eugenia, que se exhibían en vitrinas específicas de la Galería de Apolo. Entre los objetos robados se encuentran collares, broches y diademas de valor histórico incalculable.

Una de las piezas —presuntamente la corona de la emperatriz Eugenia— fue encontrada posteriormente en el exterior del museo, rota. Este hallazgo sugiere que en la huida precipitada, los ladrones pudieron haber perdido parte del botín o decidido abandonar piezas que dificultaran su escape.

Significativamente, el diamante Regente, una gema de más de 140 quilates y una de las joyas más valiosas de la colección, no fue sustraído.

Nuñez calificó las piezas robadas como “de valor inestimable”, subrayando que se trata de patrimonio histórico imposible de valorar económicamente.

La fuga fue tan planificada como el robo mismo. Los asaltantes huyeron en un scooter TMax en dirección a la autopista A6, una ruta que les permitiría salir rápidamente de París. La elección de este tipo de vehículo no es fortuita: es maniobrable en el tráfico urbano, puede circular entre carriles y es difícil de seguir en una ciudad congestionada.

Todo el operativo, desde la llegada hasta la huida, ocurrió entre las 9:30 y las 9:40 de la mañana, poco después de la apertura del museo. El momento elegido tampoco fue aleatorio: a esa hora temprana, el número de visitantes es menor y las fuerzas de seguridad aún están en proceso de desplegarse completamente.

El asalto ocurrió a menos de 800 metros de la sede de la policía de París, un detalle que subraya la audacia de los perpetradores. Las autoridades han abierto una investigación por “robo en banda organizada” y la Brigada de Represión del Bandidaje ha tomado el caso.

El Louvre tiene una larga historia de robos e intentos de robo. El más famoso fue en 1911, cuando la Mona Lisa desapareció de su marco, robada por Vincenzo Peruggia, un extrabajador que se escondió dentro del museo y salió con la pintura bajo su abrigo. Fue recuperada dos años después en Florencia, un episodio que ayudó a hacer del retrato de Leonardo da Vinci la obra de arte más conocida del mundo.

En 1983, dos piezas de armadura de la era del Renacimiento fueron robadas del Louvre y solo recuperadas casi cuatro décadas después. La colección del museo también carga con el legado de los saqueos de la era napoleónica, que continúan generando debates sobre restitución hoy en día.

El Louvre alberga más de 33.000 obras que abarcan antigüedades, escultura y pintura, desde Mesopotamia, Egipto y el mundo clásico hasta maestros europeos. Sus principales atracciones incluyen la Mona Lisa, así como la Venus de Milo y la Victoria Alada de Samotracia.

El museo puede atraer hasta 30.000 visitantes al día.

Thieves broke into the Louvre museum in Paris and stole priceless jewelry before escaping on motorbikes, French officials said Sunday.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez called the heist a «major robbery» that «lasted seven minutes.» Speaking to France Inter, he said the thieves «entered from the outside using a basket lift» and «a disc cutter» to slice through glass panes containing precious jewels.

«The investigation has begun, and a detailed list of the stolen items is being compiled,» the ministry said in a statement. «Beyond their market value, these items have inestimable heritage and historical value.»

The museum posted on X it would remain closed for the day for «exceptional reasons,» though it did not immediately provide details. No injuries were reported.

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According to French daily Le Parisien, the thieves entered through a section of the museum under construction along the Seine River. 

The crew reportedly used a freight elevator to access a room in the Apollo Gallery, which houses part of the French Crown Jewels.

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Forensic police officers arrive at the Louvre museum after reports of a robbery, in Paris, France, Oct. 19, 2025. (Reuters/Gonzalo Fuentes)

The crew stole «nine pieces from the jewelry collection of Napoleon and the Empress,» including a crown believed to have belonged to Empress Eugénie, the newspaper reported. The crown was later found broken outside the museum, the report said.

FILE – People walk outside the Louvre museum, Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025, in Paris. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

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The Louvre houses over 33,000 works spanning antiquities, sculpture, and painting – from Mesopotamian artifacts and Egyptian relics to masterpieces by European artists. Its iconic treasures include the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Two retired FBI agents who investigated the 1993 World Trade Center bombing told Fox News Digital New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani is «foolish» to campaign with an imam linked to the attack. 

Mamdani attended prayers Friday at Masjid at-Taqwa on Fulton Street in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, later posting a smiling photo with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a Brooklyn cleric who was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the bombing and a longtime defender of convicted terrorists, raising funds for their legal defenses.

«Today at Masjid At-Taqwa, I had the pleasure of meeting with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders and a pillar of the Bed-Stuy community,» wrote Mamdani, who was a toddler when terrorists parked a bomb-laden van in the garage beneath the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

Retired FBI agent Frank Pellegrino, who investigated the Feb. 26, 1993 attack, said seeing the frontrunner to be the city’s next mayor with Wahhaj left him disgusted.

«Zohran Mamdani’s embrace of Siraj Wahhaj is an example of Mamdani’s ignorance of history. Either he doesn’t know who Wahhaj is or he doesn’t care. Whichever it is, Mamdani looks foolish,» Pellegrino said.

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John Anticev, another retired FBI agent who was the lead case agent on the 1993 attack, told Fox News Digital Mamdani should know better than to court an endorsement from someone like Wahhaj.

 «Everybody who is in politics should be aware of the people whose endorsement they’re getting,» Anticev said. «Imam Siraj Wahhaj has been a cleric who has endorsed a radical agenda.»

Wahhaj, born Jeffrey Kearse, founded the Brooklyn mosque in 1991 and has a long history of controversy. Following the World Trade Center attack, prosecutors identified him as an unindicted co-conspirator in the bombing after he sponsored appearances by Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, the so-called «Blind Sheikh» who was later convicted of masterminding the plot. Wahhaj wasn’t charged with any crimes and has denied involvement in the attack. Wahhaj also raised legal-defense funds for El Sayyid Nosair, who assassinated Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1990 and was also convicted of seditious conspiracy in connection with the 1993 bombing.

Wahhaj didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In court, Wahhaj served as a character witness for Abdel Rahman, calling him a «respected scholar.» In witness testimony, he also admitted raising legal defense funds for Nosair, who was initially acquitted in the killing of Kahane, but is now serving a life sentence. 

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani speaks during an interview on «The Story with Martha MacCallum» at Fox News on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, in New York City.  (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

For Muslims who oppose Wahhaj’s ideological interpretation of political Islam, called Islamism, Mamdani’s alliance with Wahhaj is a disturbing window into what his mayoral term could bring, with his allegiances to groups and leaders with Islamist sympathies and anti-American and anti-semitic views.

Muslim scholar Dalia Ziada, Washington, D.C., coordinator and research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, said Wahhaj represents the same Islamist ideology that fueled decades of extremism in the Middle East. 

«I am particularly concerned to see mosques used as political rallying platforms in the free and democratic United States,» she said. «By embracing Wahhaj, Zohran Mamdani is sidelining moderate Muslims and normalizing an extremist ideology that once inspired terror on American soil and still fuels radicalization within segments of the Muslim community today.»

Soraya Deen, founder of the Muslim Women Speakers Movement and a co-founder of the Clarity Coalition, a network of Muslims, ex-Muslims and allies challenging Islamist extremism, heard Wahhaj for the first time 20 years ago in a talk to Muslim youth in Los Angeles.

«I was stunned and bewildered by his call to destroy America, and make Islam great,» she said.

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Deen called the photo of Mamdani with Wahhaj disturbing, noting, «A theologian spewing hatred for the United States — and Mamdani smiling beside him, calling him ‘one of the nation’s foremost Muslim leaders’ — is dangerous for America and dangerous for Muslims.»

In the photo, there isn’t a woman to be seen, because Wahhaj also practices the interpretation of Islam that denies women access to the main hall of mosques, believing they would sexually tempt the men praying inside. Deen said, «Despite the gender jihad women are facing in the Muslim world, Mamdani poses for a photo op that emboldens the men suppressing women’s rights.»

In June, a political action committee supporting Mamdani, «New Yorkers for Lower Costs,» accepted $100,000 donations from the «Unity and Justice Fund,» a political action committee tied to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group designated an unindicted coconspirator in the trial of five Holy Land Foundation leaders. The five leaders were convicted of funneling about $12.4 million to Hamas and sentenced to decades in prison. Mamdani has included sympathetic lyrics about the «Holyland Five» in a rap. Earlier this year, Nihad Awad, a co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a close ally of Wahhaj, said he was «happy» about the Oct. 7, 2023, rampage by Hamas terrorists into Israel.

Similarly, Wahhaj has preached a philosophy of exploiting America’s democracy to further a conquest for Islam. In 1991, according to a videotape of the event, Wahhaj told a gathering of Muslims: «I just want to say this. Brothers and sisters, in my opinion what the Muslims do in America will have a profound effect on Muslims everywhere on this earth. As long as you remember that if you get involved with politics, you have to be very careful that your leader is for Allah. You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam.»

Frank Pellegrino, retired FBI agent, who investigated the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. (Frank Pellegrino)

In 2011, Wahhaj urged Muslims to donate to the legal defense of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist dubbed «Lady Al Qaeda» for attempting to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

«I think that she is innocent,» he told a Worcester, Massachusetts, fundraiser. «There’s reasonable doubt, and by law, if there’s reasonable doubt, you have to acquit.»

Siddiqui, who served as a courier to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the mastermind of the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, is serving an 86-year sentence at a Texas federal prison for attempted murder and multiple other felonies.

In a 1992 talk, Wahhaj declared that if American Muslims united, «you wouldn’t have to vote for Bush or Clinton… we’d elect our own emir and give allegiance to him.»

Three years later, he shared his views on the U.S., saying, «You know what this country is? It’s a garbage can. Filthy. Filthy and sick.»

Former U.S. Navy Lt. Dr. Zuhdi Jasser witnessed a keynote address by Wahhaj in 1995 at the Islamic Society of North America conference, where the imam held up a Qur’an and declared his wish to replace the U.S. Constitution with Islamic law.

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«There’s nothing more clarifying on the Islamist extremism and dangers of Zohran Mamdani than his friendship with known anti-American jihadi Imam Siraj Wahhaj,» said Jasser, now president of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. «Mamdani’s fealty to one of America’s most radicalizing clerics tells you everything you need to know.»

A convert, Wahhaj, 75, rose to prominence as a bridge between immigrant Muslim leaders and America’s Black Muslim converts. He has headlined fundraisers for groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, including the alphabet soup of organizations that experts consider legacy groups for the Muslim Brotherhood: the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and the Muslim American Society (MAS).

In 2003, he told the Wall Street Journal that a society ruled by strict Islamic law, where adulterers are stoned and thieves’ hands are cut off, «would be superior to American democracy.»

In talks, Wahhaj denounced the U.S. government as «controlled by Shaitan,» the Arabic word for the devil, urged Muslims not to befriend «non-believers,» condemned homosexuality as «a disease of this society,» and supported Islamic laws that punish sex outside of marriage with 100 lashes and stoning. He denounced Muslims befriending non-Muslims, saying, «Woe to the Muslims who pick kafirs,» or non-Muslims, «for friends.»

New York City Democratic mayoral nominee, Zohran Mamdani, spoke to supporters at a canvass launch event in Prospect Park on Sunday, Aug. 17, 2025.  (Deirdre Heavey/Fox News Digital)

Wahhaj even instructed Muslims to bar their children from making friends outside the faith.

«Don’t you know our children are surrounded by kafirs?» he said. «I’m telling you, making the hearts of our children corrupt, dirty, foul. It’s clear, the principles are clear. Birds of a feather, they say, flock together. And so, when our Muslims hang out with the non-Muslim, you become just like them. You talk just like them. You do what they do, you dress the way they dress, you act the way they act, you want to be just like them, because their hearts are corrupt, and now they’re corrupting your heart.»

His personal life has also been shadowed by scandal. In 2018, three of Wahhaj’s children were arrested after authorities discovered 11 malnourished children living in a New Mexico compound where one of his grandchildren had died during an attempted exorcism.

The embrace of such a figure has ignited debate over Mamdani’s judgment and the Democratic Party’s tolerance for radical associations. Wahhaj remains a revered figure among some Islamist activists, including Linda Sarsour, who in 2017 called him «a mentor» and «my favorite person in the room.» Sarsour left the Women’s March, which she co-founded, amid accusations of antisemitism. She has led many of the anti-Israel marches since the Oct. 7 attack, leading chants of claiming Israel «from the river to the sea.»

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For reform-minded Muslims, however, the image of a rising American politician celebrating Wahhaj carries grim symbolism.

«It sends the wrong message to moderate Muslims who are working hard to separate faith from extremism,» said Ziada. «And it tells the broader American public that those aspiring to lead this country have forgotten what extremist ideology once did to New York’s skyline.»