The German company Bocker, which specializes in lifting technologies, is using the robbery of the Louvre Museum in France, in which its lifting elevator was used, as an opportunity to humorously advertise its products, Agence France-Presse reported.
The company posted a photo of the lifting elevator used by the thieves to enter the building, located near the Louvre, on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. The photo is captioned: “Bocker Agilo can move up to 400kg of jewellery at a speed of 42m per minute thanks to a quiet motor”.
According to the company's CEO Alexander Becker, in a telephone conversation with AFP, when photos from the scene of the accident emerged, he recognised the specific model of the lifting platform that he had sold to a customer in Paris several years earlier. Becker said that he and his wife “took the coincidence with humor“ and started thinking “how this could be used to promote the company”. Then Becker's wife came up with the advertising slogan: “When you need to get things done quickly“.
Earlier, the newspaper Le Parisien, citing a law enforcement source, reported that thieves had stolen a forklift from a private individual. The thieves contacted the man, whose identity was not disclosed, through the classifieds website Leboncoin, where he had advertised the forklift for sale.
On October 19, Paris prosecutor Lor Becker announced that four criminals had entered the Louvre with a forklift that they had driven up to its walls. After breaking into display cases in the “Apollo“ gallery, they stole a total of nine pieces of jewelry, one of which – the crown of Empress Eugenie (wife of Napoleon III), encrusted with 1,354 diamonds - was dropped during their escape. According to the prosecutor, investigators are leaning towards the theory that the robbery was carried out by professionals. Beko noted that the value of the stolen jewels is estimated at 88 million EUR.