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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous 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 better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons 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 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, 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 global news and in all the media. 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 worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals 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 best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”