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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

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

In the past, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft 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 acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, 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 structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common 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 crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, 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 security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and currently the nation lacks sufficient money.”