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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented 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 documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently France simply has no resources.”