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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said 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 theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice 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 bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled 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 common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient resources.”