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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, 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 sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “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 buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying 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 bigger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

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

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently France simply has no money.”