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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery 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.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into 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 eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to go public about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely 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 acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

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

Modern buildings 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 old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient resources.”