9 Arrested Over Suspected $12 Million Louvre Ticket Scam

The Paris-prosecutors-office" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="24136" data-entity-type="organization">Paris Prosecutor’s Office said that a network involving museum employees and tour guides had been operating for a decade. Investigators also believe the fraud occurred at Versailles Palace.Investigators said the suspected scam at the Louvre Museum in Paris involved tour guides reusing tickets for different people.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York TimesFeb. 16, 2026, 9:43 a.m. ETNine people, including two Louvre Museum employees and several tour guides, were arrested last week as part of an investigation into a large-scale ticket scam that is estimated to have cost the Louvre around $12 million, the Paris-prosecutors-office" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="24136" data-entity-type="organization">Paris Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. Investigators also suspect the ticket fraud to have taken place at the Versailles Palace, the statement added without giving further details.Part of the money was invested in real estate in France and Dubai, say investigators, who so far have seized more than $1 million in cash and more than $500,000 from various bank accounts, according to the prosecutor’s office.The identities of the nine people arrested have not been made public. The suspects have been charged with crimes including fraud committed by an organized gang, use of forged documents, corruption and aggravated money laundering. One suspect has been placed in pretrial detention on several charges, and the remaining eight have been released under strict conditions.The scam is the latest hardship for the Louvre, which has been engulfed in an ever deepening crisis since royal jewels valued at more than $100 million were stolen in a heist last October. The prestigious institution has had to account for its deficient security system and the fragility of its infrastructure, with two water leaks reported since the heist and one gallery preemptively closed after officials found weaknesses in its beams. A strike by part of the museum’s staff has also forced the building to fully or partly close about a dozen times since December.ImageSecurity workers installing barriers at the museum the day after the October jewel heist.Credit...Benoit Tessier/ReutersThe Louvre said in an email that it was encountering “an increase and diversification of ticket fraud” and that its management was working with the police to better identify and prevent it.According to the prosecutor’s office, the investigation into the suspected ticket scam was opened after the Louvre filed a complaint in December 2024 in which it said that a couple of Chinese guides were suspected of reusing tickets several times for different people. After uncovering evidence that supported those claims, investigators then suspected that guides could be bribing museum employees in order to carry out the scam.A broader investigation suggested that, for the past 10 years, a scamming network had been bringing in up to 20 groups per day, prosecutors say.The arrests were announced in the same week that the Louvre acknowledged that a water leak from a heating supply pipe had damaged a 19th-century ceiling painting by Charles Meynier. Although firefighters stopped the seepage, part of the painting was torn and one layer of paint is blistered in some areas.Even the museum’s international architectural competition for a planned renovation has been met with setbacks.A year ago, President Emmanuel Macron and the director of the museum, Laurence des Cars, unveiled a vast renovation project called “Louvre New Renaissance” that included plans to ease overcrowding by moving the Mona Lisa to a separate room and creating a new entrance, as well as a refurbishment of aging infrastructure.But the plan and the director have attracted increased criticism since the heist, in spite of des Cars’s efforts to push the initiative forward. The winner of the architectural competition for part of the project was due to be announced last Wednesday, but the museum’s email said that the meeting to select the winner had been postponed.Rachida Dati, France’s culture minister, who had refused des Cars’ resignation in the immediate aftermath of the heist, told the radio station France Inter last month that “major decisions” about the museum’s management would be made “shortly.”Ségolène Le Stradic is a reporter and researcher covering France.SKIP