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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

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

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, 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 go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively 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 circumvent security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient money.”