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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

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

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists 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”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

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

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently France simply has no money.”