🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who observe trends in global cultural theft, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in the past few years, with security personnel on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring necklaces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, specialists say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the a relevant organization.

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

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” 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 cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a bigger and lighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, 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 structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, 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 actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the robbers accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic building had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”