Paris Museum Robbery Puts Focus on Protection Concerns

Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or metals than the artifacts’ significance, perpetuating a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, the UK and the US. The venue, 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 globally renowned museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their protection in recent years, with armed guards on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and also the financial situation in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the globe have cut back on law enforcement and the culture sector,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the objects – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, performed by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the recent robbery of a valuable item from a European museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Smash, grab, and melt it down as quickly as possible.”

If the artefacts were to stay whole, specialists say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to trade something as recognizable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the Ministry of Culture has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known art pieces and would remain quiet out of shame. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of taken items is risky business for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, maybe by moving it among dangerous individuals,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to cash in a reward.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery had been commissioned. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. 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.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or re-cutting does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because contemporary methods give stones a bigger and brighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month pointing out “significant” and “persistent” delays in modernizing systems and observing that surveillance were missing in many rooms. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to remove entirely.

“Older structures are more difficult to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

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

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the day as crowds stomp through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was common of recent thefts, 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 prior to 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 robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In Paris, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a window with a electric tool.

An author said the conversation in France about the historic structure had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from blazes and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all comes down to government support and money, and at present France simply has no resources.”