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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive 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 better protected.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode 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 items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence 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 a city, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

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

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”