🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned 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 more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible 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 containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better comparisons may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities 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 remarkable 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 art thefts are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the danger of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give gems a bigger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to secure,” said 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 can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old structure had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mostly to protect the artworks from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient resources.”