Radu Dogaru - the thief who stole 7 paintings from Kunsthalle, filed a lawsuit about negligence against the museum he robbed

AMSTERDAM. Romanian Radu Dogaru, who admitted to stealing paintings by Gauguin, Matisse, Monet and Picasso, threatened to sue the Kunsthal museum he had robbed in Rotterdam, accusing the museum management of negligence, due to which it was unusual to steal works of art easily.

Radu Dogaru - one of the robbers

In total, in the case of the incredible theft of 7 world masterpieces of painting, which took only 3 minutes from the robbers (according to the video recordings), six people pass by. All of them are from Romania.

In fact, as the representative of the Dutch authorities admitted, despite an estimated value of 18 million euros ($ 24 million), not one of the paintings that belonged to the Triton Foundation was equipped with an alarm system. “I could not imagine that such valuable works would be exhibited in the museum without ensuring their safety,” Dogaru said in court. His lawyer, Catalin Dancu, said: “We can clearly talk about the negligence that led to dire consequences. If we do not get answers about who is to blame, for the failure of the museum’s security system, “we will hire Dutch lawyers to initiate legal proceedings in the Netherlands or Romania.”

The lawyer explained that if the Kunshalle museum was found guilty of negligence, he would "have to share the burden of compensation" with Dank’s client, Radu Dogaru, who has millions of claims to be made by the insurance company.

Among the paintings that were calmly taken away in a canvas bag from Kunshalle at the predawn hour of October 16, 2012 were: “Harlequin Head” by Pablo Picasso (1971), “Waterloo Bridge” and “Charing Cross Bridge” by Claude Monet (1901), “Reading the girl in white and yellow ”by Henri Matisse (1919),“ Self-portrait ”by Meyer de Haan (1890),“ A Woman in Front of an Open Window ”by Paul Gauguin (1898) and“ A Woman with Eyes Closed ”by Lucien Freud (2002). When the police went on the trail of the robbers, Dogaru’s mother, Olga Dogaru, stated that she had burned all the works of art in her furnace in a house in the sleepy Romanian village of Carcaliu in order to destroy evidence of her son’s guilt.

Later, Olga Dogaru refused her testimony, but experts from the National History Museum of Romania (Romania ’s National History Museum) stated that the ashes extracted from her furnace included the remains of three paintings dating back to the late 19th century.

“The paintings were, of course, not destroyed. I don’t know where they are, but I believe that they were sold, ”Dogaru said in his first public statement on this subject. As for the remains of 19th-century works found in his mother’s furnace, Radu said that they belonged to ancient icons that his family owned.

However, last month, the director of the National Museum of History of Romania stated that the fragments found in the ashes could not belong to the icons. After that, Dogaru’s lawyer made a contradictory statement about the fate of the masterpieces, saying, without providing evidence, that his client could give away five of them, which, according to him, could be in the territory of the Republic of Moldova.

A separate investigation is currently underway regarding the possible destruction of paintings.

Dogaru himself, constantly changing his testimony, said that all the work was given by his mother to the Ukrainian Vladimir Vladimirenko, who lives in London. Olga Dogaru herself, who faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, has not yet commented on this statement. The next hearing will be held on November 19.

Dogaru, and all his alleged accomplices, come from one region of Eastern Romania, but lived in the Netherlands and were suspected of robberies, while their girlfriends were allegedly sex workers. With little knowledge of art, they dreamed of stealing something truly valuable, and accidentally stumbled upon Kunshall. After searching all the museums on their GPS, they initially mapped out the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam (Rotterdam ’s Natural History Museum), but soon realized that its exhibits could not be resold. Then they stumbled upon a poster advertising an exhibition of 150 masterpieces in Kunshall. A Romanian art expert in Bucharest, who was contacted by a group of kidnappers to evaluate the work, helped the police identify the suspects.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru