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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent 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 metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares 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 globe have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, 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 conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective 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 all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. 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 local time, 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 prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

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 security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and at present the nation simply has no money.”