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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented 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 sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as a city, 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 unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy 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 structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”