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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe 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 quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise 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 cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely 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 buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently France simply has no money.”