How thieves rob the world's museums

In the early hours of the morning, a spectacular robbery of a museum took place in the Dutch city of Assen, which is rarely seen. Thieves, using explosives, forced their way into the Drents Museum and took priceless archaeological artefacts: a gold helmet from Kotofenesti from the 5th century BC and three gold spiral bracelets from the Dacian period. This crime during the exhibition Dacia - land of gold and silver, with more than 600 precious objects from several Romanian museums, shook the Netherlands and Romania, and the entire European cultural community.

The attackers acted quickly and efficiently - surveillance cameras recorded the moment of detonation at the entrance to the museum, after which the thieves made their way to the exhibition space through thick smoke. Just thirty minutes later, a burnt-out car was found in the nearby village of Rolde, suggesting a well-organized criminal enterprise involving at least two vehicles. The Dutch police immediately launched an investigation, and Interpol and the Romanian authorities were also involved in the search for the stolen treasure. The director of the Drents Museum Harry Tupan said that this is the biggest incident in the museum's 170-year history.

This is not the first time that artifacts from Dacia have been targeted by looters. In recent decades, the illegal trade in Romanian archaeological treasures has become a lucrative business, with many valuable items ending up on the black market and in collections around the world. The theft at the Drents museum echoes a series of robberies in the late 1990s, when similar gold bracelets were mined illegally and sold to collectors in Austria, Germany, France, Great Britain and the United States, and the Romanian state fought for their return for years.

photo: veselin milunović

SILENCE IN BELGRADE

While the Dutch police, in cooperation with Interpol and Romanian partners, are investigating the theft from Drents, Serbia has been in turmoil for years regarding the robbery of one of the museums in the capital of the country.

Namely, almost four years ago, the night watchman of the Museum of Applied Arts in Belgrade, SJ was accused of aggravated theft after stealing a steel-brass dagger, silver-plated with bakelite, made in the Kingdom of Serbia and Montenegro after 2019, from the museum's metal collection in July 1918. This case has the status of a cultural asset, and the prosecution filed an indictment against SJ. The investigation conducted by the Service for the Fight against Organized Crime (SBPOK) established that during July and August 2019, as many as 41 artistic and historical values ​​disappeared from the museum. Despite the extensive investigation, the prosecution has so far managed to collect evidence only for the theft of the aforementioned dagger, while the fate of the other items remains unknown. SBPOK received an additional request to continue the investigation and reveal all possible perpetrators.

The fact that the public found out about the theft only after two years is astonishing. The director of the Museum of Applied Art, Ljiljana Miletić Abramović, claimed that they immediately reported the theft to the police, but that they received an order from the investigation not to inform the public about it in order to make it easier to find the stolen items.

Among the missing exhibits, gold jewelry from the 19th and the first half of the 20th century stands out, the value of which is estimated at around 300.000 euros. A ring with a coat of arms, a find from around Janjevo from the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th century, and a bracelet with a lapis lazuli flower, made in Munich in 1887 and associated with the Obrenović dynasty, stand out.

The Minister of Culture at the time, Maja Gojković, made claims that Veljko Belivuk's criminal group was behind the robbery of the museum. According to her, the security of the museum was made up of members of fan groups, who actually used their position for robbery. It is particularly controversial that the security of the museum was provided by the agency "Dobergard" from Belgrade, which continued to work for the Museum of Applied Arts even after the theft was discovered. When asked about possible connections of this company with criminal groups, the director of the museum stated that they did not have such information when signing the contract, but she did not deny that they now have it. Maja Gojković expressed her suspicion that the investigation was not conducted properly. According to her, the police handled the case superficially, and the director of the museum claimed that the inspectors told her not to inform the public about the theft.

photo: veselin milunović

BRITISH MUSEUM

Museum robbery is a global problem that affects even the world's most respected institutions. One of the most serious cases in recent years took place precisely in the British Museum, an institution with eight million artifacts, whose reputation was seriously shaken after the discovery that valuable items had been missing from the collection for a long period of time.

In August 2023, the British Museum announced that some artefacts were missing or damaged, followed shortly by the dismissal of an employee suspected of involvement in the theft. At first, the details were not clear, but it was soon learned that it was about the disappearance of gold jewelry, precious and semi-precious stones, as well as glass objects originating from different historical eras. The president of the museum then emphasized his determination to resolve the situation and restore the integrity of the institution.

The suspect was longtime curator Dr. Peter Higgs, an expert in the department of Greek and Roman antiquities, and the museum launched legal proceedings against him demanding that he return the missing items or explain their fate. Higgs denied all the charges and did not attend the hearing due to health problems. Although the police investigation is ongoing, so far no charges have been filed against anyone in connection with this case.

As well as shaking public confidence, these events exposed serious failings in the British Museum's security protocols and record-keeping system. An internal audit found that much of the collection was not sufficiently documented, allowing items to disappear without a clear trace. In response to the crisis, the museum launched a comprehensive reform including the digitization of the collection over the next five years, with a budget of £10 million.

THE FUTURE OF MUSEUM PROTECTION

As the Higgs case continues in court and the investigation continues, many experts stress that the museum's responsibility to the public and history is crucial. As well as being in serious doubt, the reputation of the British Museum has been deeply damaged, and the consequences for all museums that hold the world's collections would be long-term if stricter measures regarding security, cataloging and transparency are not put in place. A report by an independent body that investigated the case indicates that many museums not only have problems with insufficiently up-to-date registers, but also face the risk of their objects disappearing or being damaged before they can react. One of the proposed steps is the creation of a dual registration system, which would provide additional control over cases and reduce the possibility of data manipulation. In this context, the importance of global cooperation in the field of recovery of stolen artifacts is highlighted. Illegal art trade researchers such as Arthur Brand, who has worked to recover stolen artefacts from a British collection, believe that the international network can play a key role in recovering cultural goods, which often end up on markets like eBay, where their price is significantly reduced compared to their real value.

But while museums deal with the consequences of these scandals, UNESCO and Interpol reports show that there are still many unknowns about the actual amount of stolen objects, whose provenance is difficult to confirm due to inconsistent or non-existent records. In the future, museums are expected to invest significantly in tracking and verification technologies, including scanning and digitization systems, that would enable faster and more secure identification of objects in their collections.