Louvre Robbery Puts Focus on Protection Issues

Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, grabbing eight items of invaluable Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into the city traffic on simple scooters may seem like the boldest of crimes, executed for global fame and subsequent Hollywood film treatments.

Specialists who observe patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent robbery at the Louvre as something more prosaic: the most recent in a series of quick-hit thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, perpetuating a trend that has emerged over the last ten years in Germany, the UK and the US. The location, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“One might wonder why criminals who want to steal expensive jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a luxury jewelry store,” said Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a Cartier store is more secure.”

A spate of violent jewellery shop thefts mean that many stores have strengthened their security in recent years, with security personnel on their locations and merchandise no longer kept on display overnight. Cultural institutions, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the in-built factor of being accessible institutions in historic buildings, and partly the current economic climate in many western countries.

“After the pandemic, governments across the world have reduced spending on police and the culture sector,” noted Marinello. “With criminals entering the Louvre, it demonstrates how vulnerable our institutions have become. This is a horrible time to be a museum.”

The theft of the items – including jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and 631 diamonds, the crown of Empress Eugénie featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable crown once owned by a royal that the robbers dropped by the roadside on their way out – has inevitably been compared with the historical theft of the famous painting from the same museum, carried out by the worker Vincenzo Peruggia.

More relevant points of reference may be the recent theft of jewellery from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over millions, the taking of a £4.75m valuable object from a UK landmark the that year, the 2017 robbery of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

“There’s a simple pattern here,” explained Marinello. “Break in, take items, and dismantle them as rapidly 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 immediately identifiable as the Louvre’s jewels on the legal marketplace”, said an art crime researcher of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art.

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

In the previous years, institutions were often hesitant to announce publicly about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would remain quiet out of shame. Now, as cultural robberies are more widely publicised, the keeping and sale of taken items is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal a famous painting, it has to remain intact or it becomes valueless, and you have to devise a plan to keep it in hiding, perhaps by passing it around dangerous individuals,” noted Marinello. “And you’re constantly exposed to the risk of an partner informing authorities to cash in a ransom.”

For comparable factors, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the robbery 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 end up in prison. You can't display it to your friends, you cannot leave it to your family.”

Modifying taken items by melting down or reshaping does reduce the value. When it comes to diamonds, it also comes with considerable risk because contemporary methods give gems a larger and brighter appearance, and antique-cut stones would either draw unwanted attention or reduce value for a coverup.

Crucially, however, melting down or re-cutting removes the evidence of the theft. “My guess is that the Louvre thieves will try to bring the items to locations with gem knowledge like a country, India or even as nearby as Antwerp, and find someone to cut out the gems,” said Marinello.

The robbery at the Louvre has already brought up concerns about security measures at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be released next month criticising “significant” and “persistent” slow progress in updating equipment and noting that security cameras were lacking in multiple areas. But specialists say displaying precious items in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are not possible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to secure,” explained Erin Thompson. “They often have nice big street-facing windows that makes it easy for thieves to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The best security systems for structures should be conceptualised “as a stronghold”, said Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to repel attackers.”

Contemporary structures are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated seismic detectors that raise alarm about a broken glass in immediately, but historic institutions may be hesitant to alter their appearance. Laser scanners can be hard 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 local time, was typical 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 guards rotate and before the museum is full of visitors who effectively act as additional security staff.”

Technological progress may have thrown up new gadgets that can notify more quickly and effectively, but it has also provided thieves new methods with which to circumvent security measures. In Paris, the robbers reached the museum’s first-floor window with a mobile equipment and breached a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the conversation in France about the 232-year-old building had primarily centered on visitor management in recent years, and not as much on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about 50 full-time emergency personnel, but their purpose is mainly to protect the artworks from fires and flooding. “There is no rapid-response unit,” Sciolino said. “In the end, the security of the Louvre all depends on government support and money, and at present France lacks sufficient resources.”