'Mastermind was not happy': Louvre burglars reveal how they pulled off €88 million jewel heist

Two men suspected of carrying out one of the most spectacular heists in French history have broken their silence, confessing to the €88 million Louvre jewel theft and revealing they were hired for €15,000 to €25,000 by a mysterious mastermind they still refuse to name.Abdoulaye N. , 40, a former internet sensation known for motorcycle stunt videos under the alias Doudou Cross Bitume, and Ghelamallah A. , 36, an unemployed Algerian, described their involvement in detail during marathon interrogations on June 2 and 22, according to Le Monde.The pair said they were recruited two or three days before the October 19, 2025 heist and given a video filmed inside the Galerie d’Apollon showing the royal jewelry collection. Their mission: break the windows and grab the jewels.“I knew I was going to rob the Louvre,” Abdoulaye admitted for the first time. Ghelamallah insisted he was told the target was a jewelry store in Paris and that he would never have set foot in the museum if he had known.

The heist: A 10-minute operation

On the morning of the heist, the group coordinated in Aubervilliers before heading to the Louvre. Abdoulaye took control of a boom lift, wearing a high-vis vest. “I extended the arm under the balcony. There were two people below. Me and Ghelamallah were above,” he recounted.The pair smashed the window of the Galerie d’Apollon and entered the museum. With a power cutter in hand, they began cutting through display case glass. “When we got inside, there was nobody, it was dark, only the lights in the display cases were on,” Abdoulaye said.Visibly irritated by his accomplice’s slow pace — despite having practiced using the tool the day before — Abdoulaye eventually helped him smash the display case. “We were meant to take as many jewels as we could. If we stayed more than three minutes, we knew we had to leave or we’d get caught. For me, what we did took too long.”

€88 million haul, abandoned crown

The pair seized eight pieces of jewelry — tiaras, a brooch, necklaces and earrings that had belonged to French queens and empresses — valued at €88 million. During their escape, they abandoned the crown of Empress Eugénie, which fell from Abdoulaye’s bag and was found near the Louvre.

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“Yes, it was me, it fell out of my bag,” Abdoulaye admitted sheepishly, adding, as the judges showed him a photo of the severely damaged jewel: “What we did was wrong, it was very serious. Fortunately, I’m not suicidal, otherwise I would have killed myself.”The men poured gasoline on the bucket truck to erase evidence and fled on scooters, narrowly escaping police by seconds. A white Citroën Berlingo served as a “relay vehicle,” with one group taking the van on a random route through the Paris ring road to “cover their tracks.”

Jewels handed to mastermind

Abdoulaye said he handed the jewels to the mastermind in an underground parking lot in Aubervilliers — the point where police lost the physical trail of the haul. He confirmed it was him in the parking lot surveillance footage handling jewelry one hour after the heist.“In my bag, I had seven or eight pieces of jewelry. The mastermind was not happy. He thought we could have taken more. We lost time getting in through the window,” Abdoulaye said. According to him, “other people” were waiting outside the parking lot to take charge of the precious jewels.Both men refused to reveal the mastermind’s identity out of fear of reprisals. “No one threatened me, but I received contacts from outside. They told me to keep quiet,” Abdoulaye said. Ghelamallah added: “They’re not angels.”Investigators remain divided on whether a mastermind exists or whether the jewels are still hidden somewhere in the Paris region. According to one theory, there was no mastermind and the jewels remain hidden, with only the four suspects knowing their location. According to the other, the loot was handed over to accomplices on the day of the heist to be sold abroad.The worst-case scenario: the crown jewels may have been dismantled, with sapphires, diamonds and emeralds recut and sold as individual stones.“I admitted my involvement. I accept the consequences and regret it. The rest is beyond me,” Abdoulaye said.