The Louvre Museum is back in the spotlight after last year's spectacular heist. Nine people have been arrested as part of an investigation into an alleged €10 million ticket fraud scheme that spanned a decade at the world's most visited museum.
The arrests were made as part of an open judicial investigation after the Louvre filed a complaint in December 2024 and now the loss to the museum over the last decade is estimated to exceed 10 million.
Those detained include two Louvre employees, several tour guides and a person suspected of being the mastermind of the scheme.
The museum notified investigators of the frequent presence of two Chinese tour guides suspected of bringing groups of Chinese tourists into the museum by fraudulently reusing the same tickets multiple times for different visitors. Other guides were later suspected of similar practices.
The prosecutor's office said surveillance and wiretaps confirmed repeated ticket reuse and an apparent strategy of splitting up tour groups to avoid paying the fee required of guides.
The investigation also pointed to suspected collaborators inside the Louvre, with guides allegedly paying them money in exchange for avoiding ticket checks.
The suspects are believed to have invested some of the money in real estate in France and Dubai. Authorities have seized more than 957,000 euros in cash as well as 486,000 euros from bank accounts.
