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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into 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 more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise 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 historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner informing authorities 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 all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as close as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” delays in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be several layers to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently France simply has no resources.”