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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study trends 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 centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places 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 brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily centered on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”