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Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher 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 establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery 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 media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers 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 remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers 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 discussion in France about the historic building had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present the nation simply has no money.”