Turns out ‘Fedora Man’ in viral Louvre heist photo isn’t an AI – just a French teen with style
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When 15-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux realized that an Associated Press photo of him at the Louvre on the day the crown jewels were stolen had attracted millions of views, his first instinct was not to rush online and unmask himself.
Quite the contrary.
A fan of Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot and living with his parents and grandfather in Rambouillet, west of Paris, Pedro decided to play with the suspense of the world.
As theories swirled about the well-dressed alien in the “Fedora Man” photo – detective, insider, fake AI? — he decided to stay silent and watch.
“I didn’t want to immediately say it was me,” he said. “With this photo, there is a mystery, so it has to last.”
For his only in-person interview since that photo made him an international curiosity, he appeared before the AP cameras at home as he did that Sunday: in a fedora, an Yves Saint Laurent vest borrowed from his father, a jacket chosen by his mother, a neat tie, Tommy Hilfiger pants and a restored, war-beaten Russian watch.
The fedora, tilted in this way, is his homage to the hero of the French resistance Jean Moulin.
In person, he’s a bright, fun-loving teenager who accidentally became immersed in world history.
From photography to fame
The image that made him famous was intended to document a crime scene. Three police officers lean on a silver car blocking the entrance to the Louvre, hours after thieves carried out a daylight raid on the French crown jewels. To the right, a lone figure in a three-piece suit strides past; a flash of film noir in a modern-day manhunt.
The Internet did the rest. “Fedora Man,” as users have dubbed him, has been interpreted as an old-school detective, an inside man, a Netflix pitch, or not human at all. Many were convinced that it was generated by AI.
Pedro understood why. “In the photo I’m dressed more in the ’40s, and it’s 2025,” he said. “There is a contrast.”
Even some relatives and friends hesitated, until they saw his mother in the background.
The security recommendations for the museum were first flagged in a French audit report a decade ago, according to a report released Thursday. Last month’s heist, in which four thieves stole jewelry worth C$143 million in broad daylight, reveals how poorly policed the world-famous museum is. CBC’s Anna Cunningham has more on London.
The real story was simple. Pedro, his mother and his grandfather had come to visit the Louvre.
“We wanted to go to the Louvre, but it was closed,” he said. “We didn’t know there was a robbery.”
They asked the police why the doors were closed. Seconds later, AP photographer Thibault Camus, documenting the security cordon, surprised Pedro mid-step.
“When the photo was taken, I didn’t know it,” Pedro said. “I was just passing through.”
Four days later, an acquaintance sent me a message: is that you?
“She told me there had been five million views,” he said. “I was a little surprised.” Then his mother called to tell him he was in the New York Times. Cousins in Colombia, friends in Austria, family friends and classmates followed with screenshots and calls.
“People were like, ‘You’ve become a star,’” he said. “I was amazed that with just one photo you could go viral in a few days.”
An inspired style
The look that shook tens of millions of people is not a costume made for a visit to the museum. Pedro started dressing this way less than a year ago, inspired by 20th-century history and black-and-white images of suited statesmen and fictional detectives.
“I like to be chic,” he says. “I go to school like this.”
He understands why people have projected a whole detective persona on him: improbable heist, improbable detective. He likes Poirot (“very elegant”) and likes the idea that an unusual crime calls for someone who looks unusual.
This instinct corresponds to the world from which it comes. His mother, Félicité Garzon Delvaux, grew up in an 18th-century palace-museum, the daughter of a curator and an artist, and regularly took her son to exhibitions.
For Pedro, art and imagery were part of everyday life. So when millions of people projected stories on a single image of him in a fedora alongside armed police at the Louvre, he went silent for several days, then moved his Instagram from private to public.
“People must have been trying to figure out who I am,” he said. “Then the journalists came and I told them my age. They were extremely surprised.”
He is relaxed about what happens next. “I’m waiting for people to contact me about films,” he says, smiling. “That would be very funny.”
