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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a valuable item 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. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

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

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give gems a bigger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” 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 preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, 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.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”