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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals 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 these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” 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 theft of the items – featuring 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 diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had mostly focused on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”