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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals 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 high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling 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 conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “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 get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

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

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic structure had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”