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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder 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 Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “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 get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible 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 proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”