In October 2025, after a heist in broad daylight at the Louvre Museum in Paris left many people stunned, a photograph of a purported dapper detective on the case went viral.
The image showed a man in a suit, coat and hat, holding an umbrella standing alongside a police officer outside the Louvre. One caption claimed this man was the detective working the case:
Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre in a brazen daylight robbery.
Somehow he looks like he’s smoking even without a cigarette in his hand, but surely everything you know about life is screaming at you: this case is officially screwed!
To solve it, we need an unshaven, overweight, washed-out detective who’s in the middle of divorce. A functioning alcoholic who the rest of the department hates.
Never gonna crack it with a detective who wears an actual fedora unironically.
(X user @MsMelChen)
The image was a real photograph, meaning it was not the product of artificial-intelligence software, but there was no evidence the man was a detective assigned to work the heist case at the Louvre. Rather, according to a New York Times interview with the photographer who took the image, he appeared to just be a passerby.
Snopes reached out to the Paris police, the prosecutor’s office and the photographer who captured the image to determine more about the man’s identity. We will update this post as soon as we learn more. Until then, the man’s identity and relationship to this case remain uncertain.
The original photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus and had a caption reading, “Police officers block an access to the Louvre museum after a robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 in Paris.” The caption did not confirm whether the man in question was included among those police officers. Camus told The New York Times he had no reason to believe the man was involved in the investigation, saying, “I don’t know him … I don’t know if he is French. Maybe a tourist? Maybe he is English.”
(Associated Press)
Another photograph Camus took at the same scene, with the same uniformed police officers, showed a woman walking over the spot where the man stood. Comparing these two photographs suggests that the man was simply another passerby Camus’ camera captured walking past the officers.
The investigative team searching for the robbers behind the Louvre heist is very large. Laure Beccuau, a Paris prosecutor in the office leading the investigation, told The Associated Press that around 100 investigators were involved in the police hunt for the jewels and the culprits.
The heist occurred Oct. 19, when thieves broke into the Louvre and took jewelry that included tiaras, earrings and necklaces that experts said had “incalculable” value. The Louvre museum director told the French Senate that a diadem, one of the stolen items, was recovered but damaged. An AP report described the investigation as a race against time for both authorities and the perpetrators, who experts predicted would have a difficult time finding buyers for the items.
Sources
Bennhold, Katrin. “The Louvre Heist.” The New York Times, 21 Oct. 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/world/louvre-jewelry-heist.html. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
“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. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
Haridasani Gupta, Alisha. “Is This Dapper Man Going to Crack the Louvre Heist Case?” The New York Times, 23 Oct. 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/style/louvre-heist-detective-photo.html. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
“Police Officers Block an Access to the Louvre Museum after a Robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 in Paris.” Associated Press, 19 Oct. 2025, https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=5deddb8980d44c2b95b5ea619153eb94&mediatype=photo. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
“Police Officers Block an Access to the Louvre Museum after a Robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025 in Paris.” Associated Press, 19 Oct. 2025, https://newsroom.ap.org/editorial-photos-videos/detail?itemid=b0d57841d71b4c71858e2527f4e4a562&mediatype=photo. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
“Six Key Takeaways from Louvre Director’s Hearing.” BBC, 22 Oct. 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c1wl05nvqz8t. Accessed 23 Oct. 2025.
