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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a bigger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows 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 structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason 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 actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present France simply has no money.”