Heist at the Louvre Episode 1: Inside the Glass Cases

20/20

The episode introduces the first installment of a true crime podcast series, Heist at the Louvre, hosted by ABC News correspondent James Longman. It reconstructs the brazen October 19, 2025, theft of over $100 million in

Key takeaways

Holly Barker planned a mid-October 2025 trip to France, allocating four days in Paris for herself and her partner Jake Barker.
The Louvre employs over 1,000 security staff daily, yet thieves bypassed standard measures by cutting through second-story windows of the Apollo Gallery.

Main topics

The October 2025 Louvre jewel heist
Firsthand accounts from tourists and security staff

Notable quotes

"The entire thing, from beginning to end, took seven minutes."

Conclusion

The episode effectively grounds a sensational international crime in human experience, using witness

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Hi, I'm James Longman, ABC News Chief International Correspondent. I want to tell you about my new podcast, Heist at the Louvre. It's a thrilling new series from ABC Audio and I really think it's unlike anything you've heard before. On October 19th, 2025, just about a year ago, the Louvre Museum was robbed. Now, $100 million worth of jewellery, which was once owned by French royalty, is missing and the most famous museum in the world has become a crime scene. In this new series, I'll be looking into the investigation of the heist. I'll be diving deep to explore the Parisian criminal underworld and the international hunt for the crown jewels. Plus, I'm going to explore what this heist has revealed about a museum and a nation known around the world for its priceless art. And we'll be sharing new episodes right here in the 2020 Feed weekly on Fridays for the next few weeks. You can also listen early by searching for Heist at the Louvre on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Or you can listen ad-free on Apple Podcasts when you subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus. Click the link in the description to learn more. Now, here's episode one of Heist at the Louvre. Speaker 3 (1:14) For me, it all began with the film Mission Impossible. Speaker 3 (1:22) In the mid-90s, when that movie first came out, it was instantly burned into my brain. Speaker 5 (1:27) Good morning, Mr Phelps. This is your mission, should you choose to accept it. Speaker 3 (1:32) Now, you might think Mission Impossible is a spy movie, but there's this moment where Tom Cruise kind of goes rogue. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. He breaks into a locked vault, he hacks into a CIA computer, and right then, it suddenly becomes my ultimate heist movie. That scene with the rope and the light-up floor and the bead of sweat. Yeah, it's just as good today as it was then. Now, if you haven't seen it, you kind of don't need to. You know the heist formula already. The good guys are the rebels, forced to steal, cheat, lie and even kill, but all for the right reasons. And they look good doing it. Everyone has that one heist movie they can watch over and over again and never get bored. From The Italian Job... Speaker 5 (2:19) You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. Speaker 3 (2:22) To Ocean's Eleven. We're just supposed to walk out of there with $150 million in cash on us without getting stopped? Yeah. Heist movies can be classic, emotional, violent, but in all of them, we get to live a little of our Robin Hood fantasies, just for a couple of hours. But what if fantasy became an ugly reality? Speaker 5 (2:46) An urgent investigation is underway in Paris after a daring jewel heist at the Louvre earlier this morning. Authorities say three people made... Speaker 3 (2:53) This story we're about to get into, it could have been a Hollywood screenplay. On October 19th, 2025, someone broke into the most famous museum in the world and stole some of the most famous jewels in the world. We're going to tell you how this heist happened and track down some people closest to those suspected of being responsible. Then we're joining the international hunt for the jewels, which takes us closer to home than you'd think. And we'll be exploring a whole world of heists from real life that might help us understand this one a little bit better. But even though this heist could have been created by a Hollywood screenwriter, it was all too real for the people who were there that day. In this episode, we'll talk to the people who saw it all unfold in real time. Because while those characters in the back of the shot in Ocean's Eleven ceased to exist after the cameras turned off, these people didn't. And what they experienced will stay with them for a long time. What they saw was a brazen heist carried out in one of the busiest museums in the world in broad daylight. Speaker 3 (4:04) From ABC Audio, I'm James Longman, and this is Heist at the Louvre. Speaker 3 (4:12) Episode 1 Inside the Glass Cases Speaker 3 (4:20) As ABC News' chief international correspondent, I travel a lot. War zones, international summits, sites of natural disasters. I have more stamps in my passport than I can count. And I've been to Paris many, many times. I go for work, but I was also raised in a French-speaking household. I've been surrounded by French culture for as long as I can remember. So for me, going to Paris kind of feels like going home. For lots of people, though... Going to Paris is the trip of a lifetime. Speaker 5 (4:50) Hello. Hi, Speaker 3 (4:51) James. Hi. Speaker 5 (4:52) Hi, everyone. Speaker 3 (4:54) This is Jake and Holly Barker. Holly is a middle school Spanish teacher and Jake is an environmental engineer. They live with their two dogs in Indianapolis, Indiana. How Speaker 4 (5:05) would you describe Indiana in one sentence? It's a great place to live if you love to travel. Speaker 3 (5:13) That's so funny. I've never heard it anywhere described like that. It's the best place to live if you want to leave quickly. Speaker 4 (5:19) You understood it exactly as I intended. Speaker 3 (5:22) Jake and Holly had been together for around 12 years, and it was Holly who gave Jake the travel bug. Speaker 4 (5:28) I really outkicked my coverage when I started dating and married Holly. She introduced me to this whole world of travel and having experiences that I never... dreamed I would ever have. And so she's my best friend and I get to explore this whole new world with her. Speaker 3 (5:47) Holly's family had taken her abroad when she was a kid, including to Paris. And last year, Holly's 70-something-year-old parents decided they wanted to go to France again. They dreamed of visiting World War II historical sites and they wanted company. Speaker 1 (6:03) When they asked if we would have any interest of going with them and kind of being... the chaperones, essentially, you know, driving them around. I was, I hopped on board and I said, you know, I will plan everything. I love to plan vacations and trips. I just, I love it. Speaker 3 (6:22) Holly planned a vacation for the four of them for the middle of October 2025. They would drive around Normandy, see the famous Mont Saint-Michel, and at the end, Holly and Jake would have a few days in Paris just for them. Speaker 1 (6:35) Jake had never... seen Paris before. So that's why I allotted like four days for the two of us to go do all the, you know, the Paris things. When Speaker 3 (6:44) they got there, they spent a few days working their way down a list of Paris must-dos. You know the kind of thing, a boat tour of the Seine River, seeing the Eiffel Tower. And on their last full day, Sunday, October 19th, they planned to spend all day at a museum, the Louvre. Holly, again, was the one who figured it all out. Speaker 1 (7:05) I was like, we are getting a 9 a.m. tour and booked on our little itinerary, you know, at least. four to five hours there. I know you cannot see everything in the Louvre in one trip, let alone one day. So yeah, I was like, well, we'll do what we can in the four to five hours that I allotted for. Speaker 3