🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and vanishing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be building protection statutes 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”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk 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. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently France simply has no resources.”