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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

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

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards 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 reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary 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 valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

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

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective 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 global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting 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 close as a city, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and noting 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 dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said 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 preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, 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 start or end of day. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently France simply has no money.”