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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable 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 Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist 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. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher 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 items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to go public about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order 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 are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained 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 are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded 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 circumvent protections. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic structure had primarily focused on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection 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 political will and money, and currently the nation simply has no money.”