The Daily Populous Sunday October 26th, 2025 night edition
Authored by apnews.com and submitted by Roguecop

Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.

PARIS (AP) — It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates.

It wasn’t a particularly great photo, with someone’s shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.

But it did the job — showing French police sealing off the world’s most-visited museum after the brazen daylight robbery last Sunday.

Plus, Camus figured, the guy walking past the officers was unusually well dressed, in a coat, a jacket and tie and wearing a fedora, adding a touch of Paris couture to the scene.

And so off went the photo to AP’s worldwide audiences.

From there, fertile imaginations sprung into high gear — whipping up an online buzz.

Posts on social media declared the well-dressed man to be a French detective — if you will, a more dashing version of the famed Inspector Clouseau from “Pink Panther” movies — even though AP’s photo caption had not identified him.

It simply read: “Police officers block an access to the Louvre museum after a robbery Sunday, Oct. 19, 2025, in Paris.”

A post on X that now has 5.6 million views says: “Actual shot (not AI!) of a French detective working the case of the French Crown Jewels that were stolen from the Louvre.”

Another poster — with 1.2 million followers — claimed the man “who looks like he came out of a detective film noir from the 1940s is an actual French police detective who’s investigating the theft.”

Camus says nothing he saw led him to that conclusion — the man was just someone who streamed away from the Louvre as authorities evacuated the area, Camus says.

“He appeared in front of me, I saw him, I took the photo,” Camus says. “He passed by and left.”

If the unidentified man really is one of the more than 100 investigators hunting for the jewel thieves, the authorities are keeping it very hush-hush.

“We’d rather keep the mystery alive ;)” the Paris prosecutor’s office said with a wink in an email response to AP questions.

Oknight on October 25th, 2025 at 18:26 UTC »

I think it's totally hilarious. This guy just walked by and happened to become the perfect image to play off the super-caper detective trope.

This time Zenigata's going to finally get that Lupin!

8BitVideoGamer on October 25th, 2025 at 14:36 UTC »

I've been to Paris twice and I plan on going back there again next summer. The French Parisian citizens are very fashionable in that city.

svideo on October 25th, 2025 at 13:08 UTC »

mystery of the year by a mile. it's got capers, it's got shenanigans, it's got the frenchest looking mother fucker anyone has ever seen.

whole situation keeps delivering the hits.