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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, 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 criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable 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 these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions 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 Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove 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 published soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. 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 local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts 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.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently France simply has no money.”