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Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” 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 objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant 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 valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them 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 trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk 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 ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

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

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. 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 Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently France simply has no money.”