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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive 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 high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

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

The robbery of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

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

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred 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 actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently France simply has no resources.”