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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery 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 recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove 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 published soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”