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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible 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 hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery 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,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner telling the police to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, 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 security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said 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 building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on visitor management in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”