A golden helmet and three gold bracelets. For more than a week, these stolen art treasures have not only been holding Drenthe, but also the whole of the Netherlands and Romania. Because although the investigation into the burglary is progressing, the four historical objects are still without a trace.
It started with a bang. An emergency exit of the Drents Museum on the Oostersingel was blown up in the night from Friday 24 to Saturday 25 January. Due to the explosion, various windows were broken of the museum and surrounding buildings. The police speak of a kind of thud.
At the beginning of the afternoon the impact of the squat becomes really clear. An excited museum director Harry Tupan tells at a press conference that at least the absolute masterpiece from the exhibition Dacia – Rich of gold and silver has disappeared. It is about the golden helmet of Cotofenesti, a piece of almost pure gold. Three gold bracelets have also been captured.
The perpetrators made their move in the nick of time, because on Monday the pieces would go back to Romania. That country of origin is also under the spell of the art. The golden helmet is one of the masterpieces of the National Romanian cultural heritage. Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu expresses aloud that he wants to demand the Netherlands an “unprecedented compensation”.
The police release images from the suspects of the art robbery on Saturday. Three people appear on it who have an explosive go. It is now also known that between Rolde and Marwijksoord, half an hour after the explosion, a burning car was found under a viaduct. The police are based on a link with the art robbery and that the perpetrators in that place have switched to another car. No one has been arrested yet.
A day later the police said they had more than fifty tips. The golden tip is not there yet. Different scenarios are discussed. This way the objects can be commissioned for a collection. Another option is the hostage of the loot, the criminals then ask for ransom in exchange for returning the loot. But it is also possible that the thieves are out of the value of the gold and melt the loot.
The car – a gray Volkswagen Golf – that was burned out under a viaduct near Rolde, was stolen on Wednesday evening in Alkmaar on Wednesday evening. The car is then equipped with license plates that have been stolen in the Frisian Witmarsum. Camera images show how another car stops at the car fire and then drives away in the direction of Nooitgedacht.
On Monday more than a hundred tips have already been received by the police about the art. And evidence is fished out of the water in a ditch near the Drents Museum. There, the police find a front hammer, who was probably used in the burglary. The museum itself now keeps its doors closed. Visitors are welcome again from Friday.
On Monday, Prime Minister Dick Schoof briefly talks to the Romanian culture minister Natalia Intotero prior to the Auschwitz commemoration. He says that the Netherlands thinks it is ‘terrible’ that the art pieces have been stolen and that everything is being done to find them and grab the perpetrators.
Nevertheless, in Romania the dissatisfaction about the state of affairs is growing, and in particular about security in the Drents Museum. According to the Romanian National Historical Museum, the collection should have been physically monitored at the time of the robbery. But there was nothing about that in the contract, according to documents that have been viewed by RTV Drenthe.
The artist costs the director of the National Historical Museum in Romania his head: he is fired by Minister Intotero. “It is undoubtedly also an unpleasant situation for him, but personally I found him unable to deal with this crisis, especially not in the field of communication,” says the minister about her decision.
A police spokesperson on Tuesday speaks in the TV program Opsporing Verzocht the suspicion that the perpetrators of the Art Reaphorus come from Noord-Holland. According to her, there are several instructions for that. It concerns at least three perpetrators. The police further think that a dark Ford transit was involved in the robbery. And more evidence has been found in Assen: a second front hammer and a smaller slash. The police suspect that the perpetrators have dumped these objects.
That same evening, museum director Tupan tells his story for the first time since the press conference. He states that the security of the Drents Museum was in order. “All contractual agreements have been met,” Tupan said at the RTL4 talk show Renze. He also says that he is doing badly. “It is of course incredibly painful and sad that this happened to us. And it is even more painful for our colleagues in Bucharest and for the inhabitants of Romania.”
The police will receive 120 new tips through the broadcast of Opsporing Verzocht. The Dutch entrepreneur Alex van Breemen, who lives in the Romanian capital Bucharest, has offered a reward of 100,000 euros for the golden tip. “Those art treasures are the basis of the state, of the Romanian people, sometimes you have to do something in life and so I have promised a reward.”
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