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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers 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 Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business 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 scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as a city, and find someone 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 state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows 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 most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic structure had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient resources.”