🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who study trends in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference 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 robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels 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 auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, 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 museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “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 secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic structure had mostly focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 permanent emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and currently France simply has no money.”