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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 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,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson 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 items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, 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 scheme to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft 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 friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in the country about the historic building had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”