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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts 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 string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend 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 thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

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

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark 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 US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, 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 newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a bigger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as a city, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “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 are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino 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 in-house brigade of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”