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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise 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 informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

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

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts 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 thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present France simply has no money.”