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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted 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 robbery of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” 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 art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”