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

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 smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

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

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” 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 – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves 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 security systems for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present France simply has no resources.”