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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

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

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely 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 buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical 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 rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”