When Alexander Boecker and his wife, Julia Schwartz, woke up last Sunday morning, the first headlines were not what they expected.
One of his company’s machines, a Boecker AgiLo furniture lift, had been used in a jewel robbery at the Louvre Museum in Paris and the image of its elevator under the balcony of the emblematic French museum was already everywhere.
French police officers stand next to a furniture lift used by thieves to enter the Louvre Museum on the Quai Francois Mitterrand in Paris on October 19, 2025.
Resign Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
In last week’s Louvre heist, four masked thieves stole eight pieces of jewelry valued at $102 million, sparking a national outcry and a nationwide manhunt. The daring robbery it took only seven minutesleaving investigators searching for answers as to how one of the world’s most secure museums was robbed in such a short time.
Based in Werne, a small town in western Germany, Boecker is a third-generation family business that employs more than 600 people and earns about 150 million euros ($174 million) a year, according to its website. Their elevators 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.”
On Sunday night, when it became clear that no one had been hurt, the shock gave way to dark humor, the 42-year-old said.
“We put together some slogans that we thought were funny,” Boecker said.
His wife, who heads the company’s marketing department, came up with the phrase that would soon go viral: “When you need to act fast.”
On Monday morning, the company licensed the now-famous Louvre heist photo (its elevator in sight) and I posted it online with the motto.
“We were hoping for maybe some laughs,” Boecker said. “Not millions.”
Police and crime scene officers secure a furniture lift extended to the balcony of a gallery at the Louvre Museum on October 19, 2025 in Paris, France.
Kiran Ridley/Getty Images
By Thursday, the post had reached 4.3 million views, an extraordinary jump from the usual 20,000.
Inside the office, other slogans were being considered: “Return on investment in just seven minutes” and “Even professional criminals trust 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 was sold to a French rental company in 2020. On October 15, 2025, the thieves arrived posing as customers, attended a brief demonstration, learned how to operate the elevator, and then drove away with it. The rental company reported the theft to the police that same day.
Boecker described his machines as “safe, reliable, durable and as quiet as a whisper.”
“More than 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 could stop the campaign, since they do not want to “cross the line.”
“But still,” Boecker said with a smile. “What a story and a great boost.”
