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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

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 valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

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

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “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 the nation simply has no money.”