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Breaking into the planet's most popular 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 most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world 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 leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible 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 secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours 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 extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic building had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and currently France simply has no money.”