Paris Museum Robbery Puts Spotlight on Security Concerns

Breaking into the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for international notoriety and subsequent movie adaptations.

Experts who study trends in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of quick-hit thefts focused more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the artifacts’ significance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they propose, would have been of secondary concern to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” said an expert in art recovery. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is more secure.”

A series of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many outlets have strengthened their security in the past few years, with armed guards on their premises and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent factor of being accessible 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 arts funding,” said 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 – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by a royal that the robbers left by the roadside on their way out – has naturally been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the worker the thief.

More relevant comparisons may be the recent burglary of jewellery from a German institution worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from Blenheim Palace the same year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of collector items 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 items were to stay whole, experts say, the thieves would struggle to find a buyer. “There’s no way to sell something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, museums were often reluctant to announce publicly about the loss of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is risky business for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a famous painting, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to conceive of a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to collect a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been ordered. “Commissioned theft is something from films,” he said. “Nobody would touch this. It’s all around the world and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does lower the worth. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or reduce value for a concealment.

Importantly, however, melting down or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the museum, with a leaked state auditor report expected to be released next month pointing out “considerable” and “ongoing” slow progress in modernizing systems and noting that surveillance were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say displaying precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are more difficult to protect,” said an art crime professor. “They often have large accessible windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you are unable to install them with proper bulletproof glass.”

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

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art 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. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be disabled during the day as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The schedule of the robbery, which took place between morning hours local time, was common of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why thefts tend to happen at either opening or closing times. Frequently when security change their shifts and prior to the museum is full of visitors who actually act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new devices that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also provided robbers new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a electric tool.

An author 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 museum has an on-site team of about fifty full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and currently France lacks sufficient money.”