Drents Museum robbery suspects come from Noord-Holland; Romania museum director fired

Three perpetrators of the art theft from the Drents Museum in Assen last weekend likely come from Noord-Holland. The police said on Opsporing Verzocht that they have indications of this. Meanwhile, the director of the Romanian museum who loaned out the stolen items has been fired, and the director of the Dutch museum is stressing that they took all the required security measures.

The police did not say on the NPO program whether the Noord-Holland suspects were the men captured on security cameras at the museum. They did say that they found a second hammer belonging to the perpetrators in the water at the museum and have indications that, in addition to a stolen dark gray Volkswagen, the perpetrators used a van in the theft. It concerns a dark-colored Ford Transit.

The police are still in the dark as to where the Golf was in the 48 hours between it being stolen and the break-in. The car was stolen in the night from Wednesday to Thursday in Alkmaar in Noord-Holland. It was then seen at 4:20 a.m. on the Julianaplein in Groningen, with license plates that had also been stolen that night on Van Aylvaweg in Witmarsum in Friesland. After the theft, the car was found burned out under a viaduct near Rolde in Drenthe.

The thieves took a golden helmet and three golden bracelets on loan from a museum in Romania during the theft on the night of Friday to Saturday. The police report that a major investigation has been launched and that, in addition to technical and tactical research at the museum, investigations have also been done in Alkmaar, Witmarsum in Friesland, Groningen, Assen, and Rolde.

Following the theft of valuable Romanian heritage from the Drents Museum, the director of the Romanian National Historical Museum, which lent out the pieces, has been dismissed, the Romanian Minister of Culture, Natalia Intotero, announced.

The director refused to resign, the Minister said. Romanian media reported that the Minister believes the museum director did not handle things properly. The decision to fire him came after Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu asked the Minister to take strict measures to protect the country’s national heritage after the art theft.

Director Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu previously said that he had not broken the law. According to the government, the archaeological objects that have now been stolen should not have been allowed to leave the country. Romanian media reported that the museum did not have a permit to loan out the items.

Director Harry Tupan of the Drents Museum says that his museum met the security requirements as contractually agreed with the insurer. “Of course, we always meet our obligations,” he said on the talk show Renze on Tuesday evening. He did not comment on the insurer’s conditions. “But all measures are included in that contract.”

When asked whether a guard should have been present at night, the museum director replied that there were other provisions that would ensure a “faster alarm than a guard.” A guard also would have been in danger if he had been present at the time of the explosion and theft.

Tupan emphasized again that he found the theft “incredibly painful and sad.” According to him, Romania’s anger is “completely understandable” and he was not surprised by it. But he added that “we are also victims.” A theft like this one in his museum “transcends the museum,” Tupan said. “There is a new order. As institutions, we will have to do something about this.”