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Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store 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 merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted 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 theft of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of 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 accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be several layers to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much 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 flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and at present France simply has no resources.”