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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part 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 globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure 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 naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, 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 informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft 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 get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released next month criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible 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 structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”