🔗 Share this article

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

Specialists who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry 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 mean that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering 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 – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by a royal that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to sell something as immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

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 newspapers. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with gem knowledge like Israel, another nation or even as close as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist 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 “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “They often 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 proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which occurred between morning hours in Paris, was typical 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 before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on political will and money, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”