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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates 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 precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal 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, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft 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 get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows 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 designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”