Masterpieces stolen from Dutch gallery may have been reduced to ashes

The international art world is on tenterhooks today as it awaits the results of forensic tests on ashes found in a house in eastern Romania, raising fears that seven masterpieces stolen from the Kunsthal gallery in Rotterdam last October may have been destroyed.

Investigators have confirmed that the ashes were taken from the home of a suspect who had already been charged in connection with the theft of the paintings – works by Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Gauguin, Lucian Freud and Dutch artist Meijer de Haan, valued at more than €100 million.

An empty suitcase, which appeared to have been hidden, was also taken away.

“Tests are under way and will take some time,” said Gabriela Neagu, a spokeswoman for the Romanian prosecutor’s office. “The ash tests are a stage in the continuing inquiry. Investigators have to take every hypothesis into account.”

The ashes were collected during a raid on a house belonging to Olga Dogaru, whose son was one of three men arrested last January in connection with the Rotterdam theft. It took just two minutes and left works by Cezanne, Degas, Dalí and Andy Warhol untouched.

Ms Dogaru was charged in March with “complicity to theft”, say the authorities. The three men were arrested after a Romanian police operation involving wiretaps in which a discussion was allegedly overheard about destroying the art if a buyer could not be found.

A 19-year-old Romanian woman – described as a girlfriend of one of the men ­– was also arrested by Dutch detectives in Rotterdam on suspicion of helping to hide the paintings immediately after the robbery.

In all, seven Romanians have been arrested so far, two of them after being seen on the gallery’s cameras acting suspiciously days before the theft.