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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

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

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent 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,” 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 find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, 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 released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy 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 most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in the country about the historic structure had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”