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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering 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 series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” 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 robbery of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels 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 released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them 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 buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had primarily focused on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”