🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and sale 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 scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in updating systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes 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 a security advisor. “It should include 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 hesitant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”