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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world 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 jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by a royal that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems 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 individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery 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 media. If you buy this, 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 reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible 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 best protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts 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 raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

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

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard 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 France lacks sufficient money.”