(MENAFN- Live Mint) The $102 million Louvre museum heist has become a marketing gold for the German company that made the furniture hoist used in the robbery. The German company, Boecker, used the Louvre heist to promote its product, posting humorous ads about how well the device worked.

Boecker which makes lifting equipment posted a picture of the mounted truck outside the Louvre with a caption,“When you need to get going again quickly.” The post also mentioned that the device can transport up to 400 kilograms with an engine that is“as quiet as a whisper.”

Thieves stole the machine

Alexander Boecke, the company's managing director, told AFP that the Louvre thieves had demanded a demonstration of the vehicle last week, but they stole the machine during the demo.

This happened on October 10, nine days before the robbery.“They removed the customer's labelling and replaced the license plates,” Boecke said.

After the Louvre heist, Alexander Boecke said that he recognised the hoist as one of their own after the pictures surfaced.

He said,“When it became clear that no one had been injured in the robbery, we took it with a touch of humour.” Boecke said that after seeing the photos, he began thinking about how the company could possibly use the incident for promotion.

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“It was, of course, an opportunity for us to use the most famous and most visited museum in the world to get a little attention for our company. The crime is, of course, absolutely reprehensible, that's completely clear to us.”

The Louvre heist: How it happened

In Sunday's heist, the thieves, dressed as renovation workers, parked the truck with an extendable ladder below the museum's Apollo Gallery shortly after it opened.

After climbing up the ladder and cutting the glass window open, they stole some ornaments. They used disc cutters to cut the glass boxes in which the jewels were kept.

The thieves escaped through the same window and fled east, joined by two accomplices waiting on scooters. They left behind a yellow construction-style jacket and several tools, including a disc cutter.

While leaving, they dropped a tiara of Napoleon III's wife, Empress Eugénie, but they made off with eight other jewel pieces.

The entire operation took just seven minutes.

(With AFP inputs)

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