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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern 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 criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, 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 theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, 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 newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested 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 “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place 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 opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”