The precious artifacts snatched from Paris’s Louvre Museum on Sunday include an emerald necklace gifted by Napoleon to his second wife and other priceless crown jewels.

The two Louvre thieves gingerly make their way down a cherry picker during their slow-motion getaway in the incredible new footage from the £76 million heist at the central Paris museum

Officials say suspects used a truck-mounted basket lift and power tools to carry out the brazen Sunday morning theft at the world’s most-visited museum.

Dutch art detective Arthur Brand told the BBC he feared the jewels may already be "long gone", having been broken up into hundreds of parts. It is highly likely the pieces will be sold for a fraction of their worth and smuggled out of France, other experts have said.

PARIS (AP) — It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates. Instinctively, he took the shot.

The theft of French crown jewels overshadowed the robbery of some $100,000 worth of historical coins from a museum dedicated to philosopher Denis Diderot.