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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK 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 breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. 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 cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

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

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present France simply has no money.”