🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the world have cut back on law enforcement and the arts funding,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how at risk our institutions 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 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from American institutions.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They are too well-known, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

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

For similar reasons, an art detective 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 all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Importantly, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or in-built vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours in Paris, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when guards change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more rapidly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a window with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the 232-year-old building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on security.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to protect the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and funding, and currently France simply has no resources.”