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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern 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 thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally 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 theft of jewellery 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 valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

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

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” 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 vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing 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 multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic building had primarily centered on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”