Radu Dogaru and five other men shocked the art world last year when the group robbed the Kunsthal museum in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The total estimated value of the paintings, all stolen in three minutes, is 18 million euros ($24 million), according to AFP.
The stolen paintings were Pablo Picasso’s “Tete d’Arlequin”, Claude Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge” and “Femme Devant une Fenetre Ouverte, dite La Fiancee” by Paul Gauguin, among others.
Despite the paintings’ high values, however, not one was equipped with an alarm, Dutch authorities said.
“We can clearly speak of negligence with serious consequences”, said Catalin Dancu, a defence lawyer for the case.
“If we do not receive answers about who is guilty” for the failure of the security system at the museum, “we are considering hiring Dutch lawyers to start a legal case in The Netherlands or in Romania.”
Dancu explained that if Kunsthal is found guilty of negligence, it would have to share the burden of compensation with Dogaru, who faces million-dollar claims from insurers.
The current whereabouts of the stolen paintings are unknown. At first, the stolen paintings were thought to be destroyed by Dogaru’s mother in an attempt to hide the evidence for her son. In fact, several weeks ago Olga Dogaru said she had burned the paintings, though she has since retracted her statement.
Dogaru, however, has said in the past that the paintings were not destroyed, but added that he doesn’t know where they are and that they’ve probably been sold.
Dancu has made contradictory statements about the paintings’ locations, at one point saying they were in Moldova while previously saying that Dogaru could give back five paintings without evidence.
The group accused of robbing the museum apparently had little knowledge of art but were eager to steal old masterpieces. They settled on the Kunsthal by chance after hearing that there would be 150 masterpieces on display in the museum.
Dogaru faces a maximum prison sentence of 20 years behind bars.
