🔗 Share this article

Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists 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 focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of violent retail store thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into 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 – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would find it hard to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“If you steal 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 partner telling the police to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was highly improbable that the theft 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 acquire these, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern methods give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting removes the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be published soon criticising “considerable” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to install to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the 232-year-old building had primarily focused on visitor management in recent years, and less on protection.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present the nation simply has no resources.”