Days after thieves took just minutes to steal eight pieces of the French crown jewels from the Louvre, a former bank robber says he warned a museum official of glaring weaknesses — including jewel cases by streetside windows that were “a piece of cake” to attack.

David Desclos talks like what he was: a pro who knew how to make alarms go quiet. In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday just outside I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid, the reformed burglar said he flagged the gallery’s windows and nearby display cases years ago, after the Louvre invited him to the Apollo Gallery to weigh in for its 2020 in-house podcast about a historic 1792 theft.

“Have you seen those windows? They’re a piece of cake. You can imagine anything — people in disguise, slipping in through the windows,” he

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