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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: 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, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting 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 millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series 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 items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems 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 Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

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

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft 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 are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

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

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled 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 typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in the country about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”