A Louvre employee was indicted and detained on Wednesday on charges including organized gang fraud as part of an investigation into a scheme to defraud the Paris museum of ticket fees for thousands of visitors. Six others had been placed in custody “because of the communications they may have had with the first defendants,” the public prosecutor said, per Le Monde.
The indicted employee also faces charges of use of forgery, assistance in the entry and circulation of a foreigner in an organized gang, active corruption, aggravated money laundering and participation in a criminal association, according to the paper. The six others, while indicted on the same charges, were released, adds Le Monde, which notes that two others charged with complicity in organized gang fraud, passive corruption, and aggravated money laundering were also released.
The scheme was uncovered in February, and left the museum with losses estimated at more than €10 million ($11.7 million). The scam involved the sale of counterfeit tickets and the overbooking of guided tours. Nine were arrested, including two museum employees, several tour guides, and the alleged mastermind. The Paris prosecutor’s office revealed that more than €957,000 ($1.1 million) in cash, plus €67,000 ($78,000) in foreign currency, was seized, in addition to €486,000 ($568,000) in separate bank accounts as well as three vehicles and multiple safe deposit boxes.
Prosecutors say that the defendants invested some of the ill-gotten gains in real estate in France and Dubai, per Le Monde. Louvre general administrator Kim Pham told the paper on Tuesday that the museum leadership has undertaken “an active policy to combat all types of fraud,” which he says are “always more inventive and numerous.”
The Louvre alerted French immigration authorities in December 2024 that Chinese tour guides were defrauding ticketing systems for groups of Chinese tourists, reusing the same ticket multiple times. Other guides later employed the same system.
The bust, prosecutors said, resulted from surveillance of the suspects, who were defrauding the museum of ticketing fees for as many as 20 groups a day for as long as a decade.
