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Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“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 – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the thieves 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 Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“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 establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “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 are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which occurred 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. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass 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 conversation in the country about the historic structure had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and currently France simply has no resources.”