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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

“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 thieves would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among 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 investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “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 buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting 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 risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy 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 buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic structure had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”