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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

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

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order 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 end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic building had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently the nation simply has no money.”