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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take expensive 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 aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. 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.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as a city, and find someone to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common 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 guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

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

An author said the discussion in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently France simply has no money.”