Claim:
Stolen jewels from the October 2025 Louvre heist were listed for sale on a Russian classifieds site.
Rating:
Context
According to Avito, the Russian online marketplace that hosted the listing, it was a prank. Avito said it had removed the listing and blocked the user that posted it.
In October 2025, after a group of thieves stole nine pieces from France’s valuable crown jewels collection during a daytime heist at the Louvre museum in Paris, a rumor (archived) circulated online that some of the stolen jewels were for sale on a Russian classifieds site.
The purported listing, titled “Parure of Marie Amalie from the Louvre,” priced a jewelry set including a crown, necklace, earrings and three brooches at 250 million rubles (around $3 million) and included an alleged image of the jewels.
One X user posting the alleged listing wrote, “Russians robbed the Louvre – and tried to sell the royal jewels on a Moscow classifieds site. From ‘liberating’ washing machines to flipping a queen’s diadem online. Empire of looters – now with delivery.”
(X user @angelshalagina)
The claim was especially popular on X and Facebook (archived, archived, archived).
According to Avito, the online marketplace that briefly hosted the listing, the listing was a prank. The company said in a statement (archived) on Oct. 21, two days after the heist, that it had deleted the listing and blocked the user who posted it.
“People with critical thinking skills understand that this is just a prank. We hope that most people do,” Avito wrote on Telegram. At the time of this writing, French investigators were searching for eight of the stolen pieces after recovering a crown that the thieves apparently dropped or discarded while fleeing the Louvre.
Given the above, we rate this claim false. Though the listing appeared to be real, it did not genuinely advertise the stolen jewels.
We reached out to the Paris Prosecutors Office and the Paris Police Prefecture, whose Brigade de Répression du Banditisme was investigating the heist, to ask whether they had investigated the listing and await replies to our queries.
Laure Beccuau, head of the Paris Prosecutors Office, said the eight missing pieces were worth an estimated 88 million euros (roughly $102 million).
The prank listing claimed to be selling the parure, meaning matching set of jewelry, of Queen Marie-Amélie, the last queen of France. According to the French Ministry of the Interior, thieves took only three items from the set: a tiara, a necklace and a single earring from a pair. Therefore, it was not possible that anyone would be selling the entire parure.
The prank listing used an image of Queen Marie-Amélie’s full parure from 2016 that showed the jewelry inside the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery, the site of the Oct. 19 heist.
Though it was unlikely the poster of the Avito listing actually had the stolen jewelry in their possession, experts told The Associated Press and the BBC that the real thieves would face difficulties selling the stolen goods and may have to decrease their asking price.
Arthur Brand, a Dutch art detective, told the BBC he feared the stolen items were “long gone.” The BBC reported, citing experts, that the thieves may have broken the jewelry into smaller pieces to smuggle out of France.
DeepL.com provided translations from Russian and French into English.
Sources
CORBET, SYLVIE. “Paris Prosecutor Says Stolen Louvre Jewels Worth an Estimated $102 Million.” AP News, 21 Oct. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/louvre-jewel-heist-security-e213b6e933e87f5a959bb51dbfdf765f.
Informations relatives au vol par effraction survenu ce dimanche 19 octobre au musée du Louvre | Ministère de la Culture. https://www.culture.gouv.fr/presse/communiques-de-presse/informations-relatives-au-vol-par-effraction-survenu-ce-dimanche-19-octobre-au-musee-du-louvre. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025.
KELLMAN, LAURIE, and JOHN LEICESTER. “Finding the Jewels and the Brazen Thieves in the Louvre Heist Is Now a Race against Time.” AP News, 21 Oct. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/france-louvre-jewels-crown-stolen-manhunt-d5bef57b372cfc9747a1709dbe22fe93.
Louvre Museum Theft: Stolen Jewels Added to INTERPOL’s Stolen Works of Art Database. https://www.interpol.int/en/News-and-Events/News/2025/Louvre-Museum-theft-Stolen-jewels-added-to-INTERPOL-s-Stolen-Works-of-Art-database. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025.
McArthur, Tom, and Gabriela Pomeroy. “Where Are the Louvre Jewels Now and Can France Get Them Back?” BBC News, 21 Oct. 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgk0y97v0go.
“Parure.” Wikipedia, 15 Oct. 2025. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parure&oldid=1316922256.
Parure | Necklace, Bracelet & Earrings | Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/parure. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025.
“Sun, Gold and Diamonds – The Galerie d’Apollon – Temporarily Closed.” Le Louvre, https://www.louvre.fr/en/explore/the-palace/sun-gold-and-diamonds. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025.
“Авито: недвижимость, транспорт, работа, услуги, вещи.” Авито, https://www.avito.ru/. Accessed 22 Oct. 2025.
