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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, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of collector items 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 find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items 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 scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator 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 global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, 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 start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. 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 discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and currently the nation simply has no money.”