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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned 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 aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly 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 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 crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals 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 Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

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

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult 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 robbery, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently the nation simply has no money.”