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Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife 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 same museum, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary 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 recent robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

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

The most solid security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, noted 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 smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present the nation simply has no money.”