🔗 Share this article

Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent 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 most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has emerged over the last decade in Europe, the UK and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the current economic climate in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the 2019 theft of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

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

If the items were to stay whole, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, 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,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be published soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and noting that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are much harder to protect,” said an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art 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 fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily focused on visitor management in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”