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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable 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, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police 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. “Nobody would touch this. 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 can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp 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. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to bypass security measures. In the city, 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 232-year-old structure had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”