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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves 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 the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way 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 cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, 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 dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing 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 proper bulletproof glass.”

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

Modern buildings are equipped 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 exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. 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 took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient money.”