Entering the planet's most popular museum in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.
Specialists who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they propose, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.
“You may ask why criminals who want to take valuable jewellery are entering a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”
A spate of violent retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and partly the current economic climate in many developed nations.
“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted 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 – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves left by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.
More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a £4.75m gold toilet from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of collector items from US mining museums.
“It's a clear trend here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly as possible.”
If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.
“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a private collector or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”
In the past, museums were often reluctant to go public about the loss of famous works of art and would remain quiet out of embarrassment. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.
“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”
For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”
Modifying stolen works by dismantling or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give stones a bigger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.
Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.
The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released soon criticising “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.
“Older structures are more difficult to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”
The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “It should include several layers to deter intruders.”
Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built seismic detectors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.
The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between morning hours local time, was typical 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 before the museum is crowded who effectively act as extra protection.”
Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new tools with which to bypass protections. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.
Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the historic structure had mostly centered on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on protection.
The institution has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from blazes and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and currently the nation lacks sufficient resources.”
