We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.
We only ever receive anonymous information, and cannot track you across other websites.
View our privacy policy
In this 4th part of the Red Notice Monitor’s Back to Basics series, we examine how Interpol’s notice system can be deployed when criminals and stolen goods cross borders, using the Louvre heist as our case study.
The first three parts of this series covered what INTERPOL is, what a Red Notice is and how to challenge one. This part applies those basics to a real case. The theft of the French crown jewels from the Louvre on 19 October 2025 shows how INTERPOL’s tools are meant to work when people and property may cross borders, and where the safeguards come in.
At around 09:30 on Sunday 19 October 2025, four thieves used a vehicle-mounted ladder to reach a first-floor balcony of the Louvre overlooking the Seine. Two of them cut through a window with power tools and entered the Galerie d’Apollon, threatened guards and smashed two display cases. The raid took about seven minutes. The gang escaped on scooters.
They took eight pieces of nineteenth-century jewellery, valued by French authorities at €88 million. Among them were the emerald necklace and earrings Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, pieces from the sapphire parure associated with Queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense, and Empress Eugénie’s diadem and corsage bow brooch. During the escape the thieves dropped Empress Eugénie’s crown, set with more than 1,300 diamonds and 56 emeralds. They left the Regent diamond behind.
The raid exposed serious security failings, and the questions raised in France about CCTV coverage and alarms have not gone away.
French police moved quickly. Two men were arrested on the weekend of 25 and 26 October 2025, one of them reportedly at Charles de Gaulle airport as he prepared to leave France. Further arrests followed at the end of October and on 25 November. By the end of November eleven people had been arrested and four charged with organised theft and criminal conspiracy. By June 2026, five had been charged and several others released.
The jewels have not been found. In June 2026 Artnet reported that phone evidence from suspects had led investigators to Belgium, amid concerns that the pieces had been broken up for sale. When the Galerie d’Apollon reopened in July 2026, the cases that had held the jewels stood empty.
This is exactly the situation INTERPOL’s tools are designed for. The suspects so far were caught in France. The property may not be there.
INTERPOL’s Stolen Works of Art database records cultural property reported stolen by member countries, with descriptions and photographs that police, customs officers, auction houses and dealers can check. The Louvre jewels were added on 21 October 2025, two days after the theft. The public can search it through INTERPOL’s ID-Art app.
The value of an entry depends on its precision. Detailed descriptions, high-resolution images and distinctive features, such as settings, stones and maker’s marks, are what allow a dealer in Antwerp or an auction house in Dubai to recognise a piece. That matters even more if the jewels are dismantled, because loose stones are far harder to trace than an imperial necklace.
One technical update since our original post. We said then that stolen art fell under Article 94 of the Rules on the Processing of Data. That article, which provided for a separate Stolen Work of Art Notice, was deleted by the General Assembly at its 93rd session in November 2025. The database remains the main tool.
If a suspect is identified and has left France, the French NCB can seek a Red Notice for their location and provisional arrest. The Article 83 threshold is easily met: organised theft carries far more than two years’ imprisonment. The request would need a French arrest warrant, a summary of the case, and identifying data such as photographs and fingerprints.
A case like this raises none of the Article 3 concerns that dominate our casework. It is an ordinary crime with no political dimension. This is the Red Notice working as intended. The rules still apply, though. The notice must rest on a valid warrant, the identification must be accurate, and the case summary must describe the individual’s alleged role.
A Blue Notice asks other countries to locate, identify or provide information about a person of interest in a criminal investigation (RPD Article 88). It is not a request for arrest. French investigators could use one to trace a suspected fence or accomplice abroad, or to ask whether a person has previous convictions elsewhere.
The threshold is lower than for a Red Notice. The practical effect can still be serious, since a Blue Notice hit at a border can lead to questioning and delay for someone who has not been charged with anything.
A Purple Notice shares information about the methods, objects, devices or hiding places used by criminals (RPD Article 92). If the Louvre gang used a distinctive technique, from the vehicle-mounted ladder to the escape route, a Purple Notice could alert museums and police worldwide. It is particularly useful where a crime appears linked to a wider network targeting cultural institutions.
The Silver Notice, piloted since January 2025, asks member countries to identify and trace assets linked to crime. If proceeds from the sale of the jewels are moved abroad, it is the natural tool for following the money. We assessed its first year in Silver Notices One Year On.
Every notice must meet INTERPOL’s standards for data quality, legality and relevance. High-profile cases create pressure to act fast, and speed is where mistakes happen. A Red Notice against the wrong person, a Blue Notice built on a misidentification from CCTV, or a notice that outlives a dropped charge can all cause real harm to people who had nothing to do with the crime.
Those people have the same remedies as anyone else. They can make an access request to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files and seek deletion of data that is inaccurate or no longer justified, as described in Part 3.
The Louvre case shows the INTERPOL system at its best: a clear crime, cooperating states and tools that fit the problem. The safeguards exist for the day the system is used against the wrong person, and that day comes more often than the headlines suggest.
This is the final part of the Back to Basics series. For more on the notice system, see INTERPOL Explained and Remove a Red Notice.
—
Image: Daniele D’Andreti via Unsplash
Red Notice Monitor launches Back to Basics series to ensure our readers understand the essential elements of Interpol and Red Notices before dealing with the complexities.
Continuing our Back to Basics series, we turn to perhaps the most frequently misunderstood element of international policing: the Red Notice itself.
This blog addresses how to delete a Red Notice: process and challenges.
