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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations 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 partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“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 establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

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

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows 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 “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had primarily focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”