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Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder 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 nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman 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 valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly 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 sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

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

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. 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, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk 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 films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical 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 extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”