Thieves steal over $4.5M worth of jewelry from French glassmaker’s museum – National
Thieves stole millions of dollars worth of jewelry from French glassmaker Lalique’s museum in an early-morning heist on Sunday, months after the infamous $100-million daytime heist at the Louvre.
The museum was broken into in Wingen-sur-Morder in northeastern France at around 5:30 a.m. local time and the thieves went straight to the jewelry room, according to Agence France-Presse.
“Approximately 20 pieces of jewelry have been stolen. At the moment, the loss is still being assessed, but it could be a few million euros, possibly reaching four million,” the source told the media.
According to the Times of London, masked thieves broke into six cases while in the museum for just 11 minutes.
The museum, dedicated to glassmaker René Lalique, said it would be closed for several days because of the break-in, according to a statement on its website.
Get the latest country news
Get the best Canadian news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you never miss a trending story.
Christian Dorschner, the mayor of Wingen-sur-Moder, told the local newspaper Les Dernieres nouvelles d’Alsace that the thieves went straight to the jewelry room and only visited that room.
“All sirens went off, as they should. And then with the security company, apparently, there was a big failure on their part: they didn’t intervene quickly, they didn’t notify the gendarmes,” said Christian Dorschner.
The museum took to Facebook to share a number of items stolen during the robbery, including a female dragonfly with wings hanging open, created by René Lalique around 1898-1900.
“After the terrible burglary of the museum, it is impossible to continue as if nothing happened. The investigation is ongoing,” said the museum.
The museum said all the missing items have been identified by the museum team and their descriptions have been forwarded to the relevant authorities to assist with the search.
The robbery is the latest museum crime in France.
In October, municipal officials discovered that part of an exhibit at the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot (Denis Diderot House of Enlightenment), in Langres, France, had disappeared.
Thieves broke into the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot after breaking into the main gate of the Hôtel du Breuil-de-Saint-Germain, which houses the museum, the Washington Post reported.
The museum was empty of visitors when the security forces saw that the sliding door had been opened and a case containing gold and silver had been broken into, said Pierrick White, a senior official in the area, told BFMTV.
The stolen coins – about 2,000 of them – were worth around €90,000 (C$147,000), the BBC reported.
News of this further heist came after the former director of the Louvre admitted to a “massive failure” at the Paris tourist attraction following the theft of the jewel in broad daylight in early October.
Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal 88 million euros ($102 million) worth of crown jewels from the Louvre, in a weekend operation that stunned visitors, exposed an apparent vulnerability and left one of France’s most iconic collections in the hands of criminals.
Several suspects were later arrested, but the stolen pieces have not been recovered.
-via files from the Associated Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
