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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are entering 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 aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also 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,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

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

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves 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 buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and currently France simply has no resources.”