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Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the worker the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos 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 previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, 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 get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give gems a bigger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the gems,” 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 soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” delays in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals 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 structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical 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 prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient resources.”