🔗 Share this article

Entering the world’s most-visited art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a string of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

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

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, partly because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, authorities across the globe have cut back on police and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and hundreds of gems, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a valuable item from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts 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 legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see paperwork confirming proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of taken items is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “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 acquire these, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does lower the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the stolen goods to places with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and observing that security cameras were missing in many rooms. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for criminals to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be reluctant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the day 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 recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as extra protection.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic building had mostly focused on crowd control in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site brigade of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to protect the collection from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and currently France lacks sufficient resources.”