How Netflix’s Lupin Pulled Off the Perfect Heist (Show)

In the first episode of Lupin, the breakout Netflix heist series, Assane Diop, a talented and charming Parisian thief, orchestrates a plot to steal a diamond necklace being sold in a charity auction at the Louvre. Once worn by Marie Antoinette, it’s known as the Queen’s Necklace. In preparation for the job, Diop finagles a position as a maintenance worker, enabling him to familiarize himself with the museum’s security system. He persuades three obstreperous members of a local loan-sharking crew to do the actual thievery—while at the same time crafting a second false identity for himself. He plans to attend the auction as a wealthy tech mogul and outbid all comers for the necklace.

The heist inevitably goes awry. The thugs try to double-cross Diop, but then he’d always planned to hoodwink them. He permits his accomplices to run off with a counterfeit version of the necklace and into the arms of the gendarmes. Diop slips the real item into a wastebasket, which he later returns to empty in his janitorial guise. Wouldn’t you know it? The Queen’s Necklace is still there. Diop deposits it in a trash bag, and off he strides past the museum’s unsuspecting guards and into the Parisian night.