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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

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

Better points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables 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 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them 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 sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant 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 selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult 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 took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently France simply has no resources.”