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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up 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 inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” 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 theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference 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 robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

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 larger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window 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 historic structure had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient resources.”