🔗 Share this article

Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe trends 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, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 theft 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 2017 heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of robberies of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

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

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

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery 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 acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible 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 proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be multiple levels to repel attackers.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built seismic detectors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have introduced new devices that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to bypass security measures. In the city, the thieves reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently France simply has no money.”