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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts 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 criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade 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 private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“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, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”