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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

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 merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking 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 thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. 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 Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps 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 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 buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

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

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

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

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic building had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present France simply has no resources.”