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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous 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 aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode 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 stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give gems a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing 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 dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, was typical 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 before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic building had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present France simply has no resources.”