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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series 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 stay whole, experts say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, 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 released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order 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 get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give gems a bigger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as a city, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” delays in updating systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said 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 most solid protective measures for structures 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 alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to alter 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 stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and water damage. “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 resources.”