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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

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

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed 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 €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an on-site team of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”