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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s 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 metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

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

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable 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 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable 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 same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the historic building had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and at present the nation simply has no money.”