Louvre Heist Puts Focus on Protection Concerns

Entering the world’s most-visited museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless historical gems and disappearing into Paris traffic on simple scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, executed for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see Sunday morning’s heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the latest in a string of smash-and-grab thefts focused more on the monetary worth of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a pattern that has appeared 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 entering a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “It's straightforward: it’s because nowadays a high-end boutique is better protected.”

A spate of aggressive retail store thefts mean that many outlets have beefed up their security in recent years, with armed guards on their locations and wares no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, meanwhile, look more exposed, in part because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in older structures, and also the current economic climate in many western countries.

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

The robbery of the items – including necklaces made up of eight sapphires and 631 diamonds, the tiara of a historical figure featuring nearly 2,000 diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once possessed by Napoleon III’s wife that the thieves dropped by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the famous painting from the Louvre, carried out by the Italian handyman Vincenzo Peruggia.

Better points of reference may be the recent burglary of valuables from a German institution worth over €113m, the taking of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a valuable item from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of thefts of sports memorabilia 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 remain intact, experts say, the thieves would find it hard to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable as the museum's gems on the legal marketplace”, commented an art crime researcher of the a relevant organization.

“They are too well-known, especially given the cultural authorities has published photos of the pieces. Even a individual buyer or an auction house would want to see documentation confirming legal possession before handling such remarkable pieces.”

In the previous years, institutions 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 reported on, the keeping and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any lawbreaker.

“Taking a Picasso, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a scheme to conceal it, maybe by moving it among difficult criminal actors,” said Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an accomplice informing authorities to collect a reward.”

For similar reasons, an art detective said it was vanishingly unlikely that the robbery had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from Hollywood movies,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It's global news and in all the media. If you acquire these, if you get caught, you end up in prison. You cannot show it to your friends, you cannot bequeath it to your family.”

Altering taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with significant danger because modern cutting techniques give stones a larger and lighter appearance, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, dismantling or reshaping eliminates the evidence of the crime. “My guess is that the robbers will try to bring the items to places with diamond expertise like a country, India or even as close as a city, and locate an expert to remove the stones,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the museum, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published soon criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating systems and observing that security cameras were lacking in many rooms. But security experts say showing precious items in historic buildings with a constant flow of guests comes with dangers that are not possible to remove entirely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have nice big street-facing 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 security systems for buildings should be conceptualised “like a fortress”, noted a security advisor. “It should include several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are fitted with state-of-the-art external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a broken glass in real time, but historic institutions may be hesitant to uglify their appearance. Laser scanners can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Motion and sound detectors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as crowds walk through a museum.

The schedule of the Louvre raid, which took place between 9.30am and 9.40am in Paris, was typical of recent thefts, Stürmann said. “There’s a good reason why robberies tend to happen at either opening or closing times. It’s often when security rotate and prior to the museum is crowded who actually act as extra protection.”

Advances in technology may have introduced new gadgets that can raise the alarm more quickly and efficiently, but it has also given thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers 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 conversation in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and less on security.

The institution has an on-site team of about fifty full-time firefighters, but their mission is mainly to safeguard the artworks from fires and water damage. “There isn't a rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the safety of the Louvre all comes down to political will and money, and at present the nation lacks sufficient money.”