Meanwhile, the Louvre’s director, Laurence des Cars, is set to make a much-anticipated appearance in front of France’s Senate Culture Committee to answer questions regarding the museum's security and what went wrong on Sunday when nine pieces were swiped from the museum’s Apollo Gallery.

Laurence des Cars told France's Senate the heist exposed the museum's camera shortage and other security 'weaknesses'.

The only camera monitoring the exterior wall of the Louvre where they broke in was pointing away from the first-floor balcony that led to Gallery of Apollo housing the jewels, she said. "We failed these jewels," she said, adding that no-one was protected from "brutal criminals - not even the Louvre".

The Louvre reopened earlier in the day to long lines beneath its landmark Paris glass pyramid for the first time since one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

Authorities raced against the clock Tuesday as experts in art security told NBC News it could already be too late to recover the jewels.

By now you’ve probably heard that a group of robbers stole millions of dollars of jewelry from the Louvre museum in Paris, news that had many people saying, “Wait, I think I’ve seen this exact thing happen in a movie before.