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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, 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 steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments 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 vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – including necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of 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 telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, 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 opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic structure had primarily focused on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently the nation simply has no money.”