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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending 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 horrible 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 featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson 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 individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques 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 eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “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 can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

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

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

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”