Paris Museum Heist Shines Focus on Security Concerns

Entering the planet's most popular art institution in broad daylight, taking eight items of invaluable historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, carried out for global fame and ensuing Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe trends in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of precious stones or metals than the historical importance, continuing a trend that has appeared over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of secondary concern to the thieves.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because nowadays a Cartier store is better protected.”

A series of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many outlets have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look vulnerable, in part because of the in-built factor of being public-facing institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

“Since Covid, governments across the world have reduced spending on law enforcement and the arts funding,” said Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it shows how at risk our museums have become. This is a difficult time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – featuring necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the crown of a historical figure containing nearly 2,000 diamonds and a extremely expensive diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the historical theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, performed by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better 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 Blenheim Palace the same year, the recent heist of a large gold coin from a European museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia from American institutions.

“It's a clear trend here,” said Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as quickly as possible.”

If the items were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “It's impossible to trade something as recognizable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They would be immediately recognised, particularly given the cultural authorities has released images of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see paperwork establishing proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of famous art pieces and would stay silent out of embarrassment. Now, as art thefts are more reported on, the keeping and selling of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to stay complete or it becomes worthless, and you have to devise a scheme to keep it in hiding, perhaps by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was vanishingly unlikely that the theft 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 buy this, if you get caught, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot leave it to your children.”

Altering stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does lower the value. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a bigger and brighter surface area, and older-style stones would either attract notice or barter the price down for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping removes the proof of the crime. “I suspect that the Louvre thieves will try to take the stolen goods to places with diamond expertise like Israel, another nation or even as nearby as Antwerp, and locate an expert to cut out the stones,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already raised questions about security measures at the museum, with a leaked official review expected to be published next month criticising “significant” and “ongoing” delays in updating equipment and observing that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a steady stream of guests comes with risks that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” explained an art crime professor. “Many of them have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to escape, and there may be building protection statutes in place that mean you can’t fit them with secure windows.”

The most solid security systems for buildings should be designed “as a stronghold”, noted a security advisor. “There should be several layers to repel intruders.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance systems or in-built vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their exteriors. Detection devices can be difficult to fit to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors stomp through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, which occurred between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was common of modern robberies, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either start or end of day. It’s often when security change their shifts and before the museum is full of visitors who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more rapidly and effectively, but it has also given thieves new tools with which to bypass protections. In the city, the robbers reached the museum’s upper level with a vehicle-mounted ladder and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

Elaine Sciolino said the discussion in the country about the historic building had primarily focused on crowd control in recent years, and less on protection.

The museum has an on-site team of about 50 full-time firefighters, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There is no quick reaction team,” Sciolino said. “Ultimately, the security of the Louvre all depends on political will and funding, and at present France simply has no money.”