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

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

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

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

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

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell 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, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals to get away, 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 structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors 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 local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently France simply has no resources.”