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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, 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. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”