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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned 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 series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers 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 real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk 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 start or end of day. It’s often when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently France simply has no resources.”