🔗 Share this article

Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable historical gems and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation 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 shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 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,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as rapidly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a concealment.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” delays in updating systems and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions 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 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. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when guards change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the thieves reached the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The institution has an on-site brigade of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”