Paris art heist: Security blunders behind Museum of Modern Art burglary
Paris city hall is responsible for the collection and mayor Bertrand Delanoe said he was 'hugely upset' by the blunders. Museum staff will be questioned amid fears the thief had inside help.
Security guards working at the museum said that the alarm had been malfunctioning constantly before it was shut down on March 30.
'It was going off all the time – causing unnecessary alerts,’ said one. ‘That’s the reason management chose to switch it off.’
Three highly trained guards were said to have been ‘dozing’ as they missed him on a series of cameras inside the building, allowing him to take the Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani and Leger.
It also emerged that the paintings may not even have been insured, because their massive value meant no company would accept the risk.‘I’m hugely upset by this,’ said Socialist mayor Bertrand Delanoe, who confirmed that more than £15million was spent upgrading the museum’s security system during a two-year refit which ended as recently as 2006.
