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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery 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 materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have cut back on police 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 horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale 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 plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install 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 occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”