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Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, 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 newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing 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 proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the robbers accessed 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 structure had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to protect the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently France simply has no money.”