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Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have cut back on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable 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 Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such striking 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 shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” 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 published soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter 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 real time, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “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.”