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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of robberies 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 artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give gems a bigger 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 re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently France simply has no money.”