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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns 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 monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police 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 robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by a royal that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and at present the nation simply has no money.”