Criminal gangs across Europe are increasingly robbing valuable jewels and gold from cash-strapped museums like the Louvre. But while police often catch the thieves, they rarely recover the stolen treasures, police and art experts say.
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Experts say only a small number of criminals are capable of the kind of daring heist in Paris on Sunday, and that police are likely to already know them. But stolen items can be quickly dismantled and sold, Reuters reported in its article "French police may catch Louvre thieves, but unlikely to recover stolen treasures."
"If I steal a Van Gogh, it's a Van Gogh. I can't sell it any other way than through the illegal art market. But when I steal jewelry, I can sell it on the black market as gemstones," says Marc Balsels, a Barcelona-based expert on crimes against cultural heritage.
The brazen robbery of the crown jewels from the Louvre, the world's most visited museum, has been called a national humiliation by some, and the incident has prompted security checks across a number of French cultural institutions.
"If you attack the Louvre - the most important museum in the world - and manage to escape with the French crown jewels, then there is something seriously wrong with security. This is one of the biggest heists in French history," said art investigator Arthur Brand.
Officials at the Louvre, home to some of the world's greatest masterpieces, including the Mona Lisa, have previously warned about a lack of investment in security.
According to media reports, at least four French museums have been robbed in the past two months, including a case where gold was stolen from the Natural History Museum in Paris.
Christopher Marinello, founder of Art Recovery International, an organization that tracks stolen artworks, says such museum robberies are on the rise across Europe and beyond.
He cited cases in the Netherlands, France and Egypt.
"If you have jewels or gold in your collection, you have reason to worry," Marinello warned.
Who is to blame?
The Paris prosecutor's office has entrusted the investigation to a specialized unit of the Paris police known as the BRB, which has experience with high-profile robberies.
Former police officer Pascal Skudlara, who worked in the unit, said the BRB led the investigation into the 2016 robbery of Kim Kardashian, when Parisian thieves stole her $4 million engagement ring, as well as investigations into a series of kidnappings of wealthy crypto businessmen.
He said the BRB has about 100 agents, more than a dozen of whom specialize in museum thefts. Investigators will review camera footage, phone records and forensic evidence, and will also involve informants.
"They can work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for a long time," Skudlara said, expressing "100%" confidence that the thieves will be caught.
Police, according to Brand, will analyze security footage from previous weeks to identify suspicious individuals who may have been scouting the facility.
Corinne Chartrel, a former police officer with the French police's Central Office for Combating Trafficking in Cultural Property, said the stolen jewels could likely end up in global diamond trade centers, such as Antwerp, where "there are probably people who don't care too much about the origin of the goods."
Diamonds, he adds, could be cut into smaller stones and gold melted down, so buyers wouldn't even know where they came from.
If the thieves feel the hoop tightening, they could throw or destroy the loot. The police are clearly in a race against time.
"Once the jewels are cut into smaller pieces, it's over. It's over. These objects never appear again in their entirety. The recovery rate for stolen artwork is very low, and when it comes to jewelry, it's even lower," Marinelo said.
Brand dismissed any theories about a mystery buyer ordering the robbery, calling them ridiculous: "That doesn't happen in real life. That only happens in Hollywood movies."
How to protect museums?
Cultural institutions across Europe are now considering how to better provide for museums at a time when public finances are under pressure.
Brand said it's not possible to completely protect the museum, so the best option is to slow down the theft process and allow police to respond more quickly — for example, with thicker windows or additional doors.
"The thieves know they only have five or six minutes to escape, because after six minutes the police arrive. If they enter the museum and realize they need more than six, seven or eight minutes, they simply won't try," he said.
Kimo Leva, director general of the National Gallery of Finland, said that economic realities make decision-making difficult.
"The state of the everyday economy, which is increasingly tightening, is of course not the best starting point for the investments needed to reduce potential threats," Leva said.
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