Louvre Heist Shines Spotlight on Protection Issues

Breaking into the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent robbery 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, continuing a pattern that has appeared over the last ten years in Europe, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why thieves who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A series of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their locations and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built reason of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the roadside on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, performed by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the theft of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the that year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a spate of robberies of sports memorabilia 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 items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would find it hard to find a buyer. “It's impossible to trade something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the licit market”, commented Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the items. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often hesitant to go public about the loss of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“If you steal a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the danger of an accomplice telling the police to collect a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you are apprehended, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying taken items by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary cutting techniques give gems a larger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Crucially, however, melting down or reshaping removes the proof of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to take the items to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing systems and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But security experts say displaying valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with risks that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be multiple levels to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but old museums may be reluctant to alter their exteriors. Laser scanners can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The timing of the Louvre raid, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security rotate and before the museum is crowded who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to bypass protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a vehicle-mounted ladder and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in France about the 232-year-old structure had mostly centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house team of about 50 permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to government support and funding, and at present the nation simply has no money.”