Paris Museum Heist Puts Focus on Security Issues

Entering the planet's most popular museum in broad daylight, taking eight pieces of priceless Napoleonic jewellery and disappearing into Paris traffic on humble scooters may seem like the most audacious of crimes, carried out for international notoriety and ensuing movie adaptations.

Specialists who study patterns in international art crime, however, see the recent heist at the Louvre as a more practical matter: the most recent in a series of smash-and-grab thefts centered more on the material value of valuable gems or materials than the historical importance, continuing a pattern that has emerged over the last decade in Germany, Britain and the US. The venue, they suggest, would have been of lesser importance to the criminals.

“You may ask why thieves who want to steal valuable jewellery are breaking into a world-famous museum rather than a Cartier store,” stated Christopher A Marinello. “The answer is simple: it’s because these days a high-end boutique is more secure.”

A spate of aggressive jewellery shop thefts indicate that many stores have beefed up their protection in recent years, with security personnel on their premises and merchandise no longer shown overnight. Museums, on the other hand, look more exposed, partly because of the inherent reason of being public-facing institutions in historic buildings, and partly the financial situation in many developed nations.

“After the pandemic, governments across the globe have reduced spending on police and the arts funding,” noted 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 robbery of the items – featuring jewelry pieces made up of precious stones and hundreds of gems, the crown of a historical figure featuring thousands of diamonds and a hugely valuable diadem once owned by Napoleon III’s wife that the robbers left by the street on their way out – has naturally drawn comparisons with the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the same museum, carried out by the worker the thief.

Better comparisons may be the 2019 burglary of valuables from Dresden’s Green Vault Museum worth over €113m, the theft of a multi-million pound gold toilet from a UK landmark the same year, the 2017 heist of a large gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum or even a series of robberies of collector items from US mining museums.

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

If the artefacts were to remain intact, experts say, the criminals would struggle to sell them. “There’s no way to sell something as immediately identifiable 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 private collector or an auction house would want to see documentation establishing proper ownership before handling such striking pieces.”

In the past, museums were often hesitant to go public about the disappearance of well-known works of art and would stay silent out of embarrassment. These days, as cultural robberies are more reported on, the storage and selling of stolen art is dangerous for any criminal.

“If you steal 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 moving it among difficult criminal actors,” noted Marinello. “There's ongoing risk to the risk of an partner telling the police to cash in a ransom.”

For similar reasons, an investigator said it was highly improbable that the theft had been commissioned. “Stolen to order is something from films,” he said. “No one would handle these items. It’s all around the world and in all the newspapers. If you buy this, if you are apprehended, you go to jail. You cannot show it to your acquaintances, you cannot bequeath it to your children.”

Modifying stolen works by dismantling or re-cutting does reduce the worth. When it comes to gems, it also comes with considerable risk because modern methods give gems a larger and lighter surface area, and older-style stones would either draw unwanted attention or barter the price down for a concealment.

Crucially, however, dismantling or re-cutting eliminates the evidence of the theft. “I suspect that the robbers will try to bring the stolen goods to locations with diamond expertise like Israel, India or even as nearby as a city, and find someone to remove the gems,” said Marinello.

The heist at the Louvre has already raised questions about protective steps at the institution, with a unauthorized state auditor report expected to be published next month pointing out “considerable” and “persistent” slow progress in modernizing equipment and noting that surveillance were missing in multiple areas. But specialists say showing valuable objects in older structures with a constant flow of visitors comes with dangers that are impossible to eliminate completely.

“Historic buildings are much harder to protect,” said Erin Thompson. “Many of them have large accessible windows that allows for criminals to get away, and there may be preservation laws in place that mean you are unable to install them with secure windows.”

The most solid protective measures for structures should be designed “like a fortress”, noted Peter Stürmann. “There should be several layers to deter intruders.”

Modern buildings are equipped with advanced external CCTV cameras or integrated vibration sensors that raise alarm about a smashed window in immediately, but historic institutions may be reluctant to uglify their appearance. Detection devices can be difficult to install to decorated surfaces. Sensors may also have to be turned off during the daytime as hordes of visitors walk through a museum.

The timing of the robbery, 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 start or end of day. It’s often when security rotate and before 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 rapidly and effectively, but it has also given robbers new methods with which to circumvent protections. In the city, the thieves accessed the museum’s upper level with a mobile equipment and cut through a glass pane with a battery-powered disc cutter.

An author said the discussion in France about the historic structure had primarily centered on visitor management in the past decade, and less on protection.

The museum has an in-house brigade of about fifty permanent emergency personnel, but their purpose is mostly to safeguard the collection 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 money, and currently the nation simply has no resources.”