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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in 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. “No one would handle these items. 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 friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

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

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy 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 best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient resources.”