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Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, 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.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“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, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give gems a larger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

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

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, 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 conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”