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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate 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 shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

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

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

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

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques 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.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” explained 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 can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts 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 additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level 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 recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently the nation simply has no money.”