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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city 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 the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have cut back on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”