(PARIS) — When Alexander Boecker and his wife, Julia Schwartz, woke up last Sunday morning, the first headlines were not what they expected.
One of their company’s machines — a Boecker AgiLo furniture lift — had been used in a jewel heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris and the image of their lift beneath the iconic French museum’s balcony was already everywhere.
Last week’s Louvre heist saw four masked thieves steal eight pieces of jewelry valued at $102 million, sparking a national outcry and nationwide manhunt. The daring heist took just seven minutes, leaving investigators searching for answers as to how one of the world’s most secure museums was robbed in such a brief window of time.
Based in Werne, a small town in western Germany, Boecker is a third-generation family firm that employs more than 600 people and earns about 150 million euros ($174 million) a year, according to its website. Its lifts are designed to move furniture, pianos and scaffolding — not priceless treasures.
“At first we were shocked,” Boecker told ABC News. “It was a reprehensible act. They had used our device to do it.”
By Sunday evening, once it was clear no one had been hurt, the shock gave way to dark humor, the 42-year-old noted.
“We put some slogans together we found funny,” Boecker said.
His wife, who heads the company’s marketing department, came up with the line that would soon go viral: “When you need to move fast.”
On Monday morning, the company licensed the now-famous photo of the Louvre heist — their lift in full view — and posted it online with the slogan.
“We expected maybe a few laughs,” Boecker said. “Not millions.”
By Thursday, the post had reached 4.3 million views — an extraordinary leap from their usual 20,000.
Inside the office, other slogans were considered: “Return on investment in only seven minutes” and “Even professional criminals rely on the best machines.” In the end, they decided to hold back.
“We didn’t want to cross the line,” Boecker said. “Of course, it’s a crime — a very serious one. We didn’t want to make fun of that.”
The AgiLo in question had been sold to a French rental company in 2020. On Oct. 15, 2025, the thieves arrived posing as clients, attended a short demonstration, learned how to operate the lift — then drove away with it. The rental company reported the theft to police that same day.
Boecker described his machines as “safe, reliable, durable — and as quiet as a whisper.”
“Over 99% of the reactions are positive,” he said. “Some people wrote, ‘Who says Germans don’t have a sense of humor?'”
He noted that they may stop the campaign, since they don’t want to “step over a line.”
“But still,” Boecker said with a smile. “Quite a story, and quite a lift.”
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