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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” 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 – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers 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 burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern 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 find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist 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 criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows 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 most solid security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

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

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the historic building had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”