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Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many stores have beefed up their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering 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 necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the famous painting 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 €113m, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently France simply has no money.”