🔗 Share this article

Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said 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 robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman 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 multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts 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 an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Stolen to order 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 acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install 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 Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic building had mostly 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 blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient money.”