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Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering 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 – including necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” said 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. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks 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 currently the nation simply has no money.”