Theft of Romanian Artifacts – Smoke Devices Failed at Drents

Smoke detectors of the Drents Museum in Assen where the Dacian artifacts were stolen did not work properly and the safety windows broke. The security of the exhibition “Dacia – Empire of Silver and Gold” at the Drents Museum did not work properly during the theft of the Cotofeneşti Golden Helmet and the three gold bracelets. This is the conclusion of Ernest Oberländer-Târnoveanu, former director of the National History Museum in Bucharest and curator of the exhibition. The thieves also tried to steal a second golden helmet, but they did not succeed, reports the Dagblad van het Noorden.

“The exhibition space should have been filled with milky smoke within seconds of the explosion, making it impossible to see anything,” says Oberländer-Târnoveanu.

“Not even your own hands. In Assen, the smoke was too slow to appear. Why didn’t the mechanism work properly?” Oberländer-Târnoveanu was the director of the National History Museum in Bucharest, from which the Drents Museum borrowed the pieces.

He was dismissed by the Minister of Culture following the art theft. Two months after the gold theft, he still has questions. “What I don’t understand either is: how could the display cases break so quickly? That shouldn’t be possible.”

The National History Museum of Romania has previously criticized the fact that there was no security guard at the Drents Museum at night. On the night of January 24 to January 25, criminals managed to open a door of the Drents Museum with explosives. Within a few minutes, they managed to steal the most important treasures. Their total value was estimated at 5.8 million euros.

Just under a week after the robbery, three suspects were arrested in Heerhugowaard, and later a fourth. Three of them are still in custody. A woman was released, but is still a suspect. A fifth suspect is still at large. In the interest of the investigation, the Drents Museum does not want to make any statements about the circumstances of the theft, the institution told Dagblad van het Noorden.