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Entering the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab 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 Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

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

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – including necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave 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 methods give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, 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 “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in the country about the historic structure had mostly focused on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present France simply has no resources.”