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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

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

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive 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 famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, 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 partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger 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 coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to protect the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present France simply has no money.”