Louvre Heist Shines Spotlight on Security Concerns

Breaking into the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and vanishing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and ensuing movie adaptations.

Experts who observe patterns in global cultural theft, however, see the recent 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 trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Europe, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“You may ask why thieves who want to take expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts indicate that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer shown overnight. Museums, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, authorities across the world have cut back on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “If thieves can get into the Louvre, it demonstrates how at risk our museums have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The robbery of the items – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally been compared with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant comparisons may be the 2019 theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound valuable object from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a spate of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” explained 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 sell them. “It's impossible to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the licit market”, said Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

“They would be immediately recognised, especially given the Ministry of Culture has released images of the items. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before touching such striking pieces.”

In the past, institutions were often reluctant to go public about the loss of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as art thefts are more widely publicised, the storage and sale of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to keep it in hiding, maybe by passing it around difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft had been ordered. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter surface area, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the proof of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with diamond expertise like a country, another nation or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” suggested Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized official review expected to be released soon pointing out “significant” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that security cameras were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing precious items in historic buildings with a steady stream of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to secure,” said Erin Thompson. “They often have large accessible windows that allows for thieves to escape, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The best protective measures for buildings should be designed “like a fortress”, said a security advisor. “It should include multiple levels to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with advanced surveillance systems or integrated vibration sensors that alert about a smashed window in immediately, but old museums may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be hard to install to stuccoed ceilings. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am local time, was typical of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “It's logical why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have introduced new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and efficiently, but it has also provided thieves new tools with which to circumvent 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 battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the conversation in the country about the historic structure had mostly focused on crowd control in recent years, and not as much on security.

The museum has an in-house team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their mission is mostly to safeguard the collection from fires and flooding. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the safety of the Louvre all depends on government support and funding, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”