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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently the nation lacks sufficient money.”