Is This Dapper Man Going to Crack the Louvre Heist Case?

The New York Times ^ | Oct. 23, 2025 | Alisha Haridasani Gupta

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Is he even real? The internet had many questions after a photo began to circulate.

It was, in nearly every way, an ordinary photo distributed by The Associated Press to news media outlets. It showed three policemen leaning against a silver car parked in the courtyard of the Louvre Museum in Paris just hours after the brazen theft of a collection of French crown jewels on Sunday.

But then there was the dapper man standing jauntily on the right side of the photo.

The officers, the A.P. caption said, were there to block the entrance to the museum. But the man, dressed in a buttoned up vest, a trench coat and a fedora, who seemed to be surveilling the scene, was more than enough reason for the internet to pounce.

In the days since the photo was uploaded, social media users — who had been romanticizing the crime as a Hollywood movie — have dreamed up numerous theories of who the unnamed man could be.

He was, many suggested, a detective assigned to the case who happened to have taken more than a few style cues from fictional characters like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot.

“Never gonna crack it with a detective who wears an actual fedora unironically,” Melissa Chen, a tech executive based in London, wrote in an X post that has been viewed more than five million times. “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.”

Others urged Netflix to secure the rights to the man’s story for a future series. Some said he was simply being French.

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TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: arttheft; france; louvre; paris; spammingfr; thelouvre

[E. Pluribus Unum]

[kiryandil]

Pendergast is on the case.

[Red Badger]

Is his name ‘Clouseau’ by any chance?..................

[FLNittany]

Keep your eye out for someone this sharp looking, and working w/ the most beautiful woman ever.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Inspector Cloueseau. 😏

[BradyLS]

Not a good example but I’ve seen photos where the Paris Metropolitan Police make those garrison caps look down-right cool.

[Liz]

French bulldog in police outfit.

[heartwood]

Babyface? He’s a model or an influencer seeking some exposure.

[sjmjax]

In other words, they need a French Columbo!

[Daveinyork]

Banacek

[Seruzawa]

That’s CHIEF Inspector Jacques Clouseau to you!

[chopperk]

Whole heist was an inside job.

[rx]

[rx]

Whole heist was an inside job.

By someone who was well aware of the opportunity occasioned by two relatively recent DEI hires.

[Doc91678]

IMO, Dreyfus was behind the heist to expose Clouseau.

[P8riot]

“Do you have a license for your monkey?”

[sasquatch]

Send in the Belgian.

[shotgun]

At your service!

[CardCarryingMember.VastRightWC]

Correction: Minkey, not Monkey.

[Bernard]

No, O do not have a license for my minkey. But, my dog does not bite.