Police received hundreds of tips on Drents Museum robbery

The police have received hundreds of tips regarding the theft of Romanian treasures from the Drents Museum in Assen, the police said on Opsporing Verzocht on Tuesday evening. Many tips were about where the suspects were seen after the robbery and who they had contact with. “We are trying to find the stolen pieces with this information,” the police said.

The thieves set off an explosion at the Drents Museum in Assen during the early hours of Saturday, January 25th. They took off with a golden helmet and three gold bracelets, which were on loan from the National Historical Museum in Bucharest. Their theft led to outrage in Romania.

The police arrested three suspects in Heerhugowaard on Wednesday. In a remarkable move, the authorities published two of the suspects’ photos and full names a day later in an attempt to find the stolen artifacts. According to the police, this happened because the suspects refused to say where the stolen artifacts were. All three suspects, two men and a woman, are still in custody.

Art detective Arthur Brand believes that there is a fifty-fifty chance that the thieves have already melted down these almost pure gold treasures. The fact that the police arrested the suspects quickly gives him hope that they didn’t have time, but their persistence in not telling the police where the artifacts are worries him. “The suspects are not saying anything. You would expect that they would perhaps start talking now, so there is a chance that they may not exist anymore,” Brand said on the television program Eve earlier this week.