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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order 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 get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” 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 “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors 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. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had primarily focused on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently France lacks sufficient resources.”