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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, the UK 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 valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“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 establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that allows 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 conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and before 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 effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”