arts

Art Crime Is Not a Priority

In the Drents Museum, thieves made off with a large treasure of gold at the beginning of this year. Such spectacular art thefts occur more frequently in the Netherlands than in Belgium, which in turn is known as a link in the international illegal art trade. What both countries have in common: art crime is low on the priority list of police and politicians.

2025 kicked off in the Netherlands with a spectacular art heist. Using violence and explosives, thieves broke into the Drents Museum in Assen in January. There, archaeological gold masterpieces were on display that had been on loan from Romania, including three golden bracelets and a nearly two-thousand-five-hundred-year-old helmet made of gold. It is feared that those archaeological artefacts are now possibly lost forever and that the perpetrators or their clients have melted them down.

“If only something by Van Gogh had been stolen, the chances would be greater that it would resurface,” says Dutch journalist Lex Boon, author of the book De gestolen Van Goghs (The Stolen Van Goghs) (Meulenhoff, 2024), in which he unfolds the story of the theft of forty-eight works by the world-famous painter. “I don’t know why the pieces were stolen in Drenthe, but I hope the thieves did it because the helmet is such a historically valuable object. The gold is only worth seventy thousand euros.”

Meanwhile, suspects have been detained, but the stolen items have not yet been recovered. The robbery in Assen is one in a long list of notable art heists in the Netherlands in which criminals manage to acquire significant works. In recent years, there have been the theft of two Warhol screenprints in Oisterwijk in November 2024, the robbery of a work by Van Gogh at the Singer Laren museum in 2020, the robbery of a work by Frans Hals in Leerdam in the same year, a daring theft of six paintings in a gallery in Eindhoven, and a jewellery heist at the TEFAF art fair in Maastricht in 2022. At the last one, baffled visitors watched as thieves made off with twenty-seven million euros worth of jewellery right under their noses and before the eyes of security cameras and personnel. Going back further in time, had been the theft of works by Picasso, Monet, Matisse, Freud, Gauguin, and Meijer de Haan from the Kunsthal in Rotterdam and twenty-four paintings and seventy old silver pieces from the Westfries Museum in Hoorn.

Fewer museum robberies in Belgium

In Belgium, such spectacular art thefts occur less frequently, say police officials and experts. In 2018, there was a smash-and-grab at a gallery in Knokke where a work worth over two million euros was stolen, along with wedding rings and manuscripts, sculptures, photographs, porcelain and silverware. In 1997, there was the theft of a valuable silver treasure from the Brussels Jubelparkmuseum, considered by some to be the largest art theft in our country. This was the work of Stéphane Breitwieser, a young French waiter who had struck in one hundred seventy-two European museums over a period of six years. In 2013, thieves made off with works by Ensor, Adriaen Brouwer, and Kees van Dongen from the Van Buuren Museum in Ukkel. The most imaginative art theft in Belgium is, of course, that of De Rechtvaardige Rechters (The Just Judges), a panel from Het Lam Gods (The Ghent Altarpiece), in 1934, which remains a source of speculation to this day.

“I think it occurs more frequently in the Netherlands than in Belgium,” says Richard Bronswijk, specialist in art crime at the Dutch police. “In the Netherlands, we have had quite a number of burglaries in museums in recent years. They often involve well-known works, which attract a lot of media attention. At the same time, there are more Belgian entries in the Interpol database for stolen art, which somewhat contradicts that image.”

Arthur Brand is an internationally renowned Dutch art detective who often collaborates with police forces and has recovered various artworks, including the ring of Oscar Wilde, a Picasso, and a work by Van Gogh. He confirms that there are certainly more art thefts in the Netherlands than in Belgium. ‘But compared to Germany or England, there are not more in the Netherlands. For some reason, thieves in Belgium are less engaged in art theft. But of course, there are some.’

Spectacular thefts get a great deal of attention, but they usually occur with private individuals and at churches, where security is generally given a lower priority. There is little clarity about the extent of the problem. The Belgian police do not provide figures on the number of art thefts. In the Netherlands, it is around a thousand per year, says Richard Bronswijk. Although those are not the latest figures. The Dutch police stopped tracking as of 2018-2019. ‘But I don’t think there has evolved that much since then.’

Disinterest among the police leadership

As spectacular as some art thefts are, the truth about the approach in both countries is just as eye-opening. In the Low Countries, art crime is not a high priority. The indifferent attitude of many officers does not help either. Janpiet Callens, former art detective at the Belgian federal police: “I once went to pick up Olympia by René Magritte at a police station in Brussels, a painting valued at 1.2 million euros. It had been stolen from the René Magritte Museum in Jette but had been recovered. The police officers just sent me out on the street with a Magritte, in the middle of the red-light district. No problem, they thought, it’s just a painting.” Culture and police do not always go hand in hand. The police are mainly focused on organized crime and lack insight into the cultural and historical aspect, especially in the value of artworks.” According to Callens, there is a lack of top brass interest regarding art crime.

Successor Lucas Verhaegen, who, like Callens, is now retired, confirms this. Verhaegen led the Art and Antiques Unit at the federal police until 2022. No one succeeded him. In the meantime, there is a unit again that officially deals with art thefts, but we shouldn’t expect too much from that, say those involved. ‘There is still someone who manages the database of stolen artworks, it’s called ARTIST, and it also passes everything on to Interpol’s database,’ says Lucas Verhaegen. ‘But the woman who leads the unit is not a specialist and has a whole list of other tasks to perform.’

Richard Bronswijk recognises the story of his former police colleagues. “It’s somewhat similar in the Netherlands to Belgium: it has its ups and downs. Between 2000 and 2007, we had no one at the national police dealing with art crime. When the person responsible retired, the unit ceased to exist. After that, there was political pressure in the Netherlands to create a unit again. The police reluctantly responded to that. I am now doing it full-time, assisted by someone who does the administration part-time. In each of the ten police zones in the Netherlands, we have a contact person for art crime. But that is also a part-time job. We are not formally organised; we are not part of the Dutch police organisational chart. In Europe, it is now receiving more priority, but you can see that this is not translating into concrete measures for us.”

Why is there so little interest from the police and government? Richard Bronswijk has a bit of a guess, he says. ‘I think it is culture-bound. There is a lot of interest, for example, in Italy, France, and Spain. Also in Eastern Europe, Bulgaria and Romania, they do much more to protect cultural heritage and combat art crime. In the Netherlands and Belgium, it doesn’t seem to be as much. That is very unfortunate. I often discussed it with Lucas Verhaegen: we feel a bit sidelined within the police. But when you have limited resources, you must be creative. We are part of GRACE, a project set up by the University of Ghent, involving Belgian police officers, people from the arts and culture sector, and academics. We share knowledge and experiences with each other. We do that in the Netherlands too, collaborating with experts and people from the sector.’

The Netherlands may have more art thefts than Belgium, but it in turn is known as a major link in the international illegal art trade. Lucas Verhaegen: “In Europe, we are a weak spot for the illegal trade in art and antiques. This is partly due to our political structure and legislation: the management of art and culture is a matter of regional jurisdiction, and the rules of the different regions are often not aligned. The Belgian procedures for export permits, for example, are different for the French Community than for the Flemish Community. Sometimes they exploit this: if it doesn’t work in Flanders, they try in Brussels or Wallonia. The penalties are also very light. In Belgium, it makes no difference whether you steal a bag of potato chips or a Rubens: under the law, it is the same, and there are hardly any sanctions attached. In France, they do take artistic or historical value into account.”

Difficult for smaller museums

And what about the museums? How well do they safeguard themselves against art theft? Renate van Leijen, a specialist in secure heritage at the Dutch National Cultural Heritage Agency, states that she cannot make general statements about this. “There are quite a few differences, depending on a number of factors: how many paid employees and volunteers there are, how well they are trained, what collection is present, what exhibitions are held, and – of primary importance – how big the budget is. In the Netherlands, for example, there are thirty-four national museums. They manage the government collection and have a duty of care, which means they must have a security policy and plan. Additionally, there are about five hundred registered museums that also must comply with certain regulations. However, these are less strict.”

Ibrahim Bulut, a Flemish consultant specialising in museum security and involved in the GRACE research project, emphasizes the importance of the available budget. “Security costs money, and it often does not come first. Although things are evolving. Security is getting more attention today. Why is that? The value of the stolen pieces is rising, and there are criminal gangs that have specifically set their sights on museums. The large museums in Ghent, Brussels, Bruges, and Antwerp have excellent security measures. Just like in the Netherlands, you often see that government museums have serious mandates regarding security.”

Art detective Brand knows that it is often difficult for smaller museums. “Some are often located in old buildings, for example, with a great deal of windows. Those are generally harder to secure. Plus: they also have less money for security. But even larger museums can sometimes be difficult to secure, because they are in large buildings with many areas that are prone to burglary. Thieves also work very boldly. The security in the Drents Museum must have been fine, but: is it still sufficient? Many museums are struggling with that today.”

Low solve rate

No figure can be attached to the annual damage of art crime to the economy and society, but certainly, stolen art is rarely recovered. The FBI has estimated that the solve rate ranges from two to six percent, while the Art Loss Register, the largest private database of stolen art in the world, reports a solve rate for valuable works of around fifteen percent after twenty-five years.

Arthur Brand estimates that globally, about seven to eight percent of thefts are solved. “That’s not a lot, but it’s not really surprising. There are simply too few resources. There are hardly any good databases where art dealers can check which works have been stolen. Interpol has one, but it is not up to date. I once sent an email stating that a work from their database was being offered for sale at an auction. They replied: ‘Oh, that work was found ten years ago, sorry.'”

In the Netherlands, the solve rate is even lower at around five percent, says Richard Bronswijk: “These are mostly old cases, things that were stolen thirty years ago and then resurface. Through the Art Loss Register or via the Carabinieri, we often receive a notification that something offered at an auction is registered with us as a stolen piece.”

The biggest problem, in Bronswijk’s eyes, is that there is too little investigative capacity. “When something happens like in Assen, they pull out all the stops. Then a lot can be done, even more than in a murder investigation, so to speak. But a standard art theft is treated like a standard burglary. The staff capacity of the police in the Netherlands is, like in Belgium, very limited. A report just collects dust. There is hardly any investigation. That is the main problem in our countries.”

• art heist
• crime
• Vincent van Gogh