🔗 Share this article

Breaking into the planet's most popular museum 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 global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“You may ask why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted 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 eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said 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 pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation confirming proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery 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 acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary 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.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “It should include multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old structure had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently the nation simply has no money.”