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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals 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 lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal valuable 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 high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, 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.

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

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the worker the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in 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 all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts 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 additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and currently France simply has no money.”