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

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk 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 crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia 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 items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice 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 Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give gems a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

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

The best protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently France simply has no money.”