🔗 Share this article

Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted 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 robbery of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

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

In the past, museums were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft 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 end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” explained 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 are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for buildings should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present France lacks sufficient money.”