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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often 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”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. 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 took place between morning hours local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced 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 thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had primarily focused on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently France simply has no money.”