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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive 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 these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery 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 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate 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 artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels 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 released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft 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 end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath 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 modern methods give gems a bigger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves 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 structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled 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. It’s often when security change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect 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 currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”