In January 2025 three robbers blew open a door of the Drents Museum in Assen in the Netherlands and made off with the golden helmet of Coțofenești and three bracelets

In January 2025 three robbers blew open a door of the Drents Museum in Assen in the Netherlands and made off with the golden helmet of Coțofenești and three bracelets. All the objects had been lent to the museum by Romania for the exhibition “Dacia: Empire of Gold and Silver”. The helmet, some 2,500 years old, is a ceremonial headdress of the Geto-Dacians, the people who inhabited the territory of present-day Romania and were famed for their gold, and the bracelets come from Sarmizegetusa, the capital of the Dacians; all of these are among the country’s foremost national antiquities.

For a year and a half the pieces were considered lost: it was feared that the all-too-recognisable helmet would be melted down into an ingot, since selling it was out of the question. In April 2026 the helmet and two bracelets were returned, in exchange for a reduced sentence for two of the suspects; the third bracelet has not been found.

On 5 June the court in Assen gave the three men 47 months each for theft and damage to museum property