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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 Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder 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. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said 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 proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering 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 stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India 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 protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures 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 hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly 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 funding, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”