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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s 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 valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, 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 valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows 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 thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by a royal that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order 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 acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern 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 coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery 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” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and at present the nation simply has no money.”