2025 Drents Museum heist
The Drents Museum, where the robbery took place | |
| Date | 25 January 2025 |
|---|---|
| Time | 3:45 a.m. |
| Venue | Drents Museum |
| Location | Assen, the Netherlands |
| Coordinates | 52°59′36″N 6°33′51″E / 52.99333°N 6.56417°E |
| Outcome | €6 million worth of items stolen |
| Property damage | Drents Museum due to the used explosives |
| Suspects | Thieves from North Holland |
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On 25 January 2025, a group of individuals forcibly entered the Drents Museum in Assen, Netherlands, using explosives, and stole golden artifacts valued at approximately €6 million. These, which include the Helmet of Coțofenești, with an estimated value of €4.3 million, are irreplaceable archaeological treasures that represent the Dacian civilization, which thrived in present-day Romania before conquest by the Roman Empire in 106 AD. Three gold bracelets from the Dacian royal collection were also stolen. The exhibition, which had never before been displayed internationally at this scale, included items such as ceremonial jewelry and religious objects dating back to the 2nd century BC.
Romania's Ministry of Culture has vowed to do everything possible to retrieve the artifacts, which had been on loan to the Drents Museum from the National History Museum of Romania in Bucharest. Harry Tupan, director of the Drents Museum, expressed profound dismay at the theft, describing it as the most significant incident in the museum's 170-year history.
As a result, the Romanian minister of Culture Natalia Intotero fired the director of the National History Museum in Bucharest.