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Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend 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.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – including necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions 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 stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”