A sweeping fraud scheme focusing on ticket gross sales on the Louvre was uncovered earlier this week, leaving the scandal-plagued museum going through losses estimated at greater than €10 million. The Palace of Versailles was additionally implicated within the scheme, which concerned the sale of counterfeit tickets and the overbooking of guided excursions, the Paris prosecutor’s workplace confirmed on Thursday.
French authorities shared that 9 folks have been arrested, together with two museum staff, a number of tour guides, and one particular person suspected of organizing the scheme. The Paris prosecutor’s workplace confirmed that greater than €957,000 in money—plus €67,000 in overseas forex—was seized, along with €486,000 in separate financial institution accounts. In line with Le Parisien, three automobiles and a number of protected deposit containers have been additionally confiscated.
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The Louvre informed the publication that it’s “going through a resurgence and diversification of ticket fraud”, prompting the museum to “put in place a structured plan to fight fraud”, notably by way of “preventive and healing actions (…) and monitoring of their outcomes”.
The establishment added that the continued police operation “was carried out following a report from the Louvre Museum as a part of its anti-fraud coverage and the continued interactions between the museum’s groups and the police concerning fraudulent practices.”
The investigation reportedly started in December 2024 after the Louvre alerted police to “the frequent presence of a few Chinese language guides on the museum, who have been bringing in teams of Chinese language vacationers by defrauding the ticket workplace, the guides reusing the identical tickets a number of instances for various folks. Different guides have been subsequently suspected of the identical practices.
Surveillance and wiretaps confirmed that tickets have been being reused by the offenders, and that the fraudulent tour guides have been conspiring with staff of the Louvre to pocket the proceeds from ticket gross sales. The Paris prosecutor’s workplace opened a judicial investigation final June 2 on suspicions of “organized fraud, organized cash laundering, lively and passive public corruption, aiding and abetting unlawful entry and residence in an organized group, and use of cast administrative paperwork”.
The investigation additionally uncovered that the scheme spanned a decade, throughout which the suspects smuggled in generally to twenty teams per day, costing the Louvre greater than ten million euros.
The prosecutor added that these implicated are suspected of getting invested a few of the proceeds in actual property, each in France and in Dubai.
ARTnews has contacted the museum for remark.
