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Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery 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 criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical 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 full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on security.

The institution has an on-site team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”