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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

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

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “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 end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were lacking 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.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present France simply has no money.”