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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum 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, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “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 beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

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

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant 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 storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 leave it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am 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 change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in the country about the historic structure had mostly focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”