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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared 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 valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

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

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European 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 artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said 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 touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering 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 methods give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals 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 designed “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical 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 rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”