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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value 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 suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists 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 licit market”, commented 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 pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator 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 acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, 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 security rotate and prior to 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 thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic building had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”