Louvre jewel heist recalls Long Island museum thefts of the past

The thieves who stole $102 million in jewels from the Louvre on Sunday appear to have done more or less what others have done on Long Island for the last century, albeit on a smaller scale: smash, grab, leave. On Long Island, sometimes, they didn’t even have to smash.

In June, Newsday reported the theft of a replica World War II pistol from The Museum of American Armor in Old Bethpage; then, several days later, the arrest of a Mastic man apparently attempting to return the replica after trying, and failing, to convert it into a functioning weapon.

The incident was troubling enough to museum officials that they "put some of our exhibits behind Plexiglas, which is something we didn’t particularly want to do, because we wanted our visitors to be able to get close and personal" with the artifacts on display, said museum vice president Gary Lewi in an interview Monday.

The museum took another step as well, he said: "We installed kill switches on all our vehicles" that, when engaged, make the vehicles impossible to start.

The museum’s collection includes non-firing but otherwise operational tanks, tank destroyers, armored cars and half-tracks. While all of these vehicles are historically significant and asking prices for tanks range into hundreds of thousands of dollars on online marketplaces, they would likely make unappealing targets for most thieves.

First, Lewi said, to escape with their 30 or 40 tons of loot, a thief would need a flatbed truck, would need to avoid parkways and could only cross bridges at certain times. He knows this because the museum has taken delivery of (legally purchased) vehicles from out of state. Second, Lewi said, even if the thief somehow made their getaway, it would be next to impossible to sell the goods on the open market.

Consider the Sherman tank. "There are few operational Shermans out there," Lewi said. "Collectors know where they are, museums know where they are. I could cite to you, chapter and verse, where they are and who owns them."

The list of museum thefts on Long Island goes back to at least 1960, when Newsday reported the theft of a ruby-and-diamond-studded gold cross, the "Sacred Heart of Jesus," designed by Salvador Dalí, from the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill. The museum director at the time, Valentine Arbogast, told Newsday that someone appeared to have entered the museum overnight by breaking a window and ripped open the wooden backing of the case where the cross was displayed. By 1967, Newsday reported, the museum had a burglar alarm but the theft of the Dalí "has not been solved."

As in the Louvre incident, where thieves took historically significant pieces that held sapphires and emeralds and the emerald-set imperial crown of Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugénie, containing more than 1,300 diamonds — later found outside the museum — experts said pieces might be broken down and sold for parts.

"We fear that they intend to destroy a magnificent work of art," said Arbogast, who valued the cross at $50,000, or almost $550,000 in 2025 dollars, with its components worth about a tenth of that. Police told Newsday that the cross, which enclosed the world’s largest heart-shaped pearl, would be difficult to fence because it was so recognizable.

In 1967, Newsday reported another Parrish theft, this time of an oil painting: "Court Jester," by the American William Merritt Chase, the gift of former museum president Rebecca Littlejohn, valued at $77,000 to $110,000 in 2025 dollars. There was no sign of a break-in and police theorized that a thief might have simply lifted the painting from the wall behind the reception desk, where it hung, and stuck it under their coat.

Parrish staffers did not comment.

In 1983, Newsday reported that officials for C.W. Post Center, now LIU Post, and officers from Nassau County Police Department’s Special Investigations Squad, which handled art-theft cases, were investigating the disappearance of an unknown number of paintings and prints from the Old Brookville school’s collection. A recently hired gallery director had discovered that pieces were missing when she started an inventory. The school president told Newsday that inventory had not been done in years and that some pieces were turning up. "Some are in faculty offices and some are in exhibitions," he said.

In 1988, Newsday reported the theft of an Édouard Manet painting, "Bouquet of Peonies," valued at more than $1 million, or about $2.7 million today, from the Heckscher Museum of Art. That painting was soon recovered from a Queens apartment building. A Heckscher museum representative declined to comment.

Often, though, stories of thefts don’t end happily, said Sasha Giordano, the director of the Hofstra University Museum of Art.

Her museum’s collection includes pieces from the 1500s and 20th century pop art master Andy Warhol. The museum tracks visitors and contractors, operates alarms and "monitoring systems," and its staffers communicate regularly with university security, she said.

News of the Louvre theft was "upsetting and disappointing," she said. "Once it goes for sale ... the risk is that it disappears" into a private collection.

The loss of objects that can be melted down or broken apart for easier sale, as in the Louvre case, can be all the more devastating.

"You have a piece of history, a tangible piece of history, that cannot be replicated," Giordano said. "These are pieces that the queen of France had worn — you cannot replicate that."

With AP