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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, 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,” noted 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 theft 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 diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down 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 sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

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

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, 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 prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”