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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“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 legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” 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 most solid security systems for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours 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 rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly 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 mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”