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Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

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. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, 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 buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings 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 hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”