From Paris stunt legend to Louvre heist suspect: Who is Abdoulaye ‘Doudou Cross Bitume’ N?

The financial loss from France’s most dramatic heist in decades has been put at nearly €90m.

He was known across parts of Paris long before his name appeared in headlines about a $100 million museum robbery. In the 2000s, the man friends call Abdoulaye — and the internet knew as “Doudou Cross Bitume” — built a reputation as a daring dirt-bike rider who pulled wheelies up the Champs-Élysées and weaved through traffic on one wheel at high speed. In recent years, he tried to present a different image: a regular at outdoor gyms, a cheerful father, a man who said he had put his past behind him, the New York Times reported.

Now, the 39-year-old from the working-class suburb of Aubervilliers has been charged as one of four suspects in the spectacular Louvre heist that stunned France. Prosecutors say he was among the group that broke into the museum’s Apollo Gallery and escaped with crown jewels worth more than $100 million. He has not yet stood trial and denies nothing publicly; through his lawyers, he has offered no comment.

For friends who did pull-ups and calisthenics alongside him in Paris parks, the charges are almost impossible to square with the man they thought they knew.

From urban rodeos to a quieter life

Abdoulaye grew up in Aubervilliers, at the northern edge of Paris, in a large family whose parents had emigrated from West Africa, according to friends and local accounts. The area, long associated with immigration and industrial decline, has been slowly gentrifying as old factories are converted into studios and cultural spaces.

As a young man, he was drawn to “urban rodeos” — illegal high-speed motorbike stunts on city streets. Under the pseudonym Doudou Cross Bitume, he posted videos from 2007 onward on Dailymotion, showing himself riding motocross bikes on one wheel along highways, bike paths and busy boulevards. His exploits earned him cult status in that subculture and even shout-outs from well-known French rappers.

Over time, French authorities cracked down, making such rodeos punishable by prison because of the risk to riders and bystanders. Friends say Abdoulaye spoke less and less about those days. At the outdoor gym where he became a familiar face, he told one training partner that now he had children, he didn’t want them to associate him with that old “bad boy” persona.

Instead, he reinvented himself as a street-workout enthusiast. His social media shifted from bike stunts to clips of pull-ups, gymnastic tricks and impressive strength routines. In recent videos, he is often smiling, a bandanna tied across his forehead, joking about missed flights and long workouts before going home to his kids.

The Louvre break-in that shocked France

In October, burglars struck the Louvre’s gilded Apollo Gallery — home to some of France’s most treasured jewels. According to Paris’s chief prosecutor, two men used a ladder truck to reach a second-floor window, broke in, and then used a disc grinder to slice open two bullet-resistant display cases.

They grabbed pieces including a tiara covered in thousands of diamonds and more than 200 pearls, once worn by France’s last empress. Outside, two high-powered scooters and two

accomplices were waiting, and the group sped away just as police were closing in. In their rush, investigators say, the thieves left behind crucial evidence: a glove, a helmet, the ladder truck — and traces of DNA.

Within days, four men had been identified as suspects. Three were arrested and charged; one remains at large. The stolen jewels have not been recovered.

How DNA and a past record led to a suspect

French authorities say the DNA lifted from what the thieves left behind matched profiles already stored in the national database. Among those was a 39-year-old man whose criminal record included 15 entries, two of them for theft.

Prosecutors, citing an earlier court document, identified that man as Abdoulaye N. One case dates back to 2008, when he rammed a car into an ATM. Another resulted in a 2015 theft conviction. It was this existing record, officials say, that allowed forensic traces from the Louvre crime scene to be matched so quickly.

During an initial court appearance, the two men accused of physically entering the museum admitted taking part in the theft but tried to downplay their roles, the prosecutor has said. Abdoulaye’s lawyers have declined to confirm whether his online persona is indeed Doudou Cross Bitume, saying they want to protect his privacy.

Friends struggle to reconcile the charges

At an outdoor gym near the Accor Arena in southern Paris — a familiar evening gathering spot for street-workout regulars — the news of Abdoulaye’s arrest landed with disbelief.

Training partners describe him as generous and soft-spoken, the kind of person who arrived with fruit, pastries or even a birthday cake for the group before heading off to look after his children. One well-known athlete in the scene, Shenty Alexis, says he only realised after months of training together that his new friend was the same rider he had watched as a teenager online. When he asked why Abdoulaye never mentioned his notoriety, the answer was simple: that was the past, and he was a father now.

The last video on Abdoulaye’s TikTok account, posted in September, features Alexis performing flips on the bars. After the Louvre arrests, that clip was replayed by media outlets around the world, often without clarifying that Alexis himself is not a suspect. He says strangers have since stopped him in the street, accusing him of being part of the heist and demanding to know where the jewels are.

Some of the online reaction has turned racist and abusive, Alexis says. He has hired a lawyer and filed a complaint for defamation over the way his image has been used.

A local legend facing a very different spotlight

In Aubervilliers, the case has become neighbourhood gossip, with some residents half-jokingly dubbing Abdoulaye the “Lupin of Aubervilliers,” after the fictional gentleman thief made newly popular by a Netflix series. Others, like his friend Medhy Camara, struggle to reconcile the man they knew — a kind presence at the park, someone they saw as an older brother — with the idea he could be involved in a high-stakes museum robbery.

For now, Abdoulaye is formally charged, not convicted. One suspect is still on the run, and the missing jewels remain a glaring question in an investigation that has gripped France. As the case moves slowly toward trial, a onetime urban-rodeo legend and outdoor-gym regular finds his life, and his past, under a microscope he spent years trying to avoid.