PARMA, Oct 31 — Two men wearing head torches climbed through a forced-open window at the Fondazione Magnani Rocca museum near Parma on the night of March 22 and calmly lifted artworks by Cézanne, Renoir, and Matisse from the walls.
Within three minutes, they had passed the works, valued at about €9 million (RM40.89 million), to an accomplice and fled. At the museum's main gate, a fourth man discharged a fire extinguisher when the alarm sounded, distracting the custodian.
"Whatever could go wrong, did," said Stefano Roffi, director of the private foundation that runs the museum.
The raid was one of a string of museum thefts in France, Italy and Spain since last year's heist at the Louvre in Paris, raising concerns that criminals are increasingly targeting smaller institutions with fewer resources to protect valuable collections.
"This is where we see the 'Louvre effect'. If the Louvre was so easy to rob, just imagine a tiny museum in a rural area or a smaller town," said Barcelona-based researcher Marc Balcells, who specialises in crimes against cultural heritage.
Works by the 15th-century painter Antonello da Messina vanished from a museum in his Sicilian hometown in August, while two Renoirs were stolen from Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera the following month.
In Spain, thieves stole hundreds of historic gold coins from museums in Badajoz and Albacete and made off with a Bronze Age treasure in Villena, near Alicante.
A 2024 survey by France's Culture Ministry found only one in four cultural institutions had an emergency and risk-prevention plan, while nearly half lacked video surveillance.
Who checks when the alarm goes off?
A French Parliamentary report in May said museums lacked the resources and preparation to adequately protect artworks and artefacts.
In Italy, the challenge is amplified by the way the country's cultural heritage is spread across hundreds of towns and institutions, a legacy of centuries of fragmented rule.
"That is also what makes our system distinctive: works remain in the places where they were created. But we need to make life harder for criminals," said the International Council of Museums' Italian committee president Antonella Pinna.
The council worked with Italy's Culture Ministry and the Carabinieri on museum security guidelines published in 2015, but she said technology alone was not enough.
"If an alarm goes off, someone has to make sure it is checked," Pinna added.
In a narrow street in the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro, the civic museum displays four works by Renaissance master Piero della Francesca, born just steps away in the 15th century.
The Louvre theft "affected us deeply because cultural heritage is central to Sansepolcro's identity. It is our soul," culture councillor Francesca Mercati told Reuters.
After the Louvre raid, officers from the Carabinieri's cultural heritage protection unit recommended more cameras, longer retention of closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage and tighter controls on bags and bulky clothing.
"We immediately implemented those recommendations," she said.
A vast network to protect
The scale of the challenge is daunting.
According to the Italian National Institute of Statistics, the country has over 4,400 museums and similar institutions. Spain has about 1,500 museums, while France has more than 1,200 institutions carrying the official "Musée de France" designation, alongside hundreds of smaller collections.
Protecting such a broad network is particularly difficult for smaller institutions that depend on local funding.
Paris-based security consultant for cultural institutions Florence Imbert said 85 per cent of small French museums are run by local authorities with limited financial resources.
"The budget is key to winning the war," she said.
France's Culture Ministry announced a 33-point security plan in July, backed by €30 million (RM136.3 million) over three years for local museums.
Recent figures suggest concern is warranted. The Carabinieri art squad recorded 17 thefts from Italian museums and galleries in 2025, up from 14 a year earlier.
In an August report, Europol said that museum thefts are becoming more forceful and increasingly focused on precious metals, gemstones, and other high-value artefacts.
A fast buck?
Unlike gold or jewellery, which can be broken up or melted down, a well-known painting is difficult to turn into quick cash.
Pinna noted that celebrated works such as those by Renoir can rarely be sold openly. Instead, stolen art is more likely to be hidden, used as leverage in ransom attempts or offered privately.
Even when works are recovered, museums can face significant costs linked to investigations, recovery efforts and upgraded security.
The recent thefts have also reignited debate about insurance.
Broker Howden Specialty's private wealth and fine art insurance specialist Filippo Guerrini-Maraldi said that most major state-backed museums in Western Europe rely on government indemnity schemes rather than commercial cover, but some institutions have begun reassessing the risks.
"And for the first time, really, in my 40-year career, I have seen art theft now becoming more of a major, major risk. It was always the minor risk," he said.
Insurers are also turning to technology. Beazley's fine art underwriter Dishni Mahendran said they are exploring how artificial intelligence can analyse CCTV footage to identify suspicious behaviour in museums and galleries, helping security staff spot threats sooner.
Security vs access
For museum directors and cultural officials, the challenge is how to tighten security without cutting collections off from local communities or diminishing the visitor experience.
"Ultimately, museums must remain easy to access. People should be able to enter without having to pass through 50 security checks," Imbert said
Belgium's Africa Museum conservator Julien Volper said particularly vulnerable treasures should only be displayed when adequate security measures are in place.
"I am not saying that is the ultimate solution, but it seems better than displaying replicas. We are not at Disneyland," he said.
In August, the Carabinieri recovered the three artworks stolen from the Parma museum from a cardboard box hidden in an apartment. Five Moldovan nationals were arrested in connection with the theft.
Investigators said wiretaps indicated the suspects had unsuccessfully tried to find buyers in Eastern Europe and Russia.
The works have since returned to the museum in what Roffi called a "homecoming party".
"The theft triggered an outpouring of solidarity in Italy and abroad," he said. The museum now has round-the-clock guards funded by a local cheese consortium.
"It was seen not simply as a theft from a museum, but as an attack on art as a shared cultural heritage," Roffi added.
