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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns 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 focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built 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 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 difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound 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 series of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly 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 reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art 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, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as close as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical 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 change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”