Nine Arrested in Connection With $12 Million Louvre Ticket Scam
25Feb. 16, 2026
French police have detained nine people in relation to a ticketing fraud scheme that may have cost theLouvre€10 million ($12 million). The Paris prosecutors’ office reports that twoLouvrestaffers, several tour guides, and a person thought to be the organizer of the scheme are among those being held.
“Based on the information available to the museum, we suspect the existence of a network organizing large-scale fraud,” a museum spokesperson told Agence France-Presse.
According to Le Parisien, the scam involved the repeated re-use of tickets. Targeting groups of Chinese visitors, tour guides allegedly distributed and reused the same tickets multiple times a day. The scheme is believed to have been carried out up to twenty times a day for the past decade. The Associated Press reports that surveillance and wiretaps carried out by the prosecutors’ office suggested that the fraudsters split up visitor groups to avoid paying the “speaking fee” leveled on tour guides by the Louvre, enlisting museum staff to help them avoid ticket checks. Related US Art Spaces Shutter Nationwide in Support of General Strike Protesting ICE Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Announces Layoffs
The scheme has been under investigation since last June and also implicates the Palace of Versailles. Authorities have seized more than €957,000 in cash, including €67,000 in foreign currency. The suspected scammers are thought to have invested some of money in real estate in France and Dubai.
News of the potential scam comes as the Louvre continues to deal with the fallout of the October 2025 broad-daylight theft of $120 million worth of crown jewels, which remain unrecovered. The Paris institution has been repeatedly forced to close temporarily as its workers strike over what they decry as execrable working conditions and crumbling infrastructure. The museum just this week partly closed its Denon gallery, home to some of its most valuable works, following a water leak.