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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, 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 objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring 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 inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound 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 collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house 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 famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news 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 friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

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

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder 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 preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm 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. 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 occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason 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 introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic building had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”