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Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the inherent reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman 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 same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of collector items 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 thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, 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 acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said 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 are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in the country about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”