🔗 Share this article

Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

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

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.

“It's a clear trend 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 struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said 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 pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk 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. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give gems a larger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy 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 protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on visitor management in the past decade, and not as much on protection.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”