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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 disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, 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 globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped 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 Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable 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 released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often 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 can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed 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 primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”