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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk 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 a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned 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 same museum, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as a city, and find someone to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“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 preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security rotate and before 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 efficiently, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”