Paris Museum Robbery Puts Focus on Protection Concerns

Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in the middle of the day, grabbing eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who study patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared 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 steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the objects – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has inevitably drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the Italian handyman the thief.

More relevant points of reference may be the 2019 burglary of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “It's impossible 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 Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a individual buyer or an sales venue would want to see documentation establishing legal possession before touching such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of stolen art is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to conceal it, maybe by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator 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 all around the world and in all the media. If you buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say displaying valuable objects in historic buildings with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible 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 proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid security systems for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to stuccoed ceilings. Sensors may also have to be disabled during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “It's logical why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when guards rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old structure had primarily centered on crowd control in the past decade, 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 artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”