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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

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

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft 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 get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as a city, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

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

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners 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 schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic structure had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”