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Breaking into the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

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

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

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed 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 commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws 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”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off 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 local time, was typical of recent thefts, 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 full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window 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 232-year-old building had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and water damage. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”