A museum in Győr might have displayed a fake coin collection for a month since pieces of the original exhibition were stolen from the building, reports Index.
This information was confirmed by the National Investigation Bureau (NNI). NNI stated that an investigation had been opened against an unknown offender for the crime of stealing of particularly high value.
Concerning the ongoing investigation no further details have been disclosed.
It is not known currently when the artefacts might have been switched to fake ones.
Spokeswoman of the Attorney’s office of Győr Katalin Gál stated that the investigation itself has been going on for half a year and the prosecution is “in a legal assistance connection with countries of the EU”. This means that they can “request data and information from EU countries which can be used for the investigation by the Hungarian authorities”.
The spokeswoman said that in this particular investigation data had been requested from Austria. The original pieces of the collection of Rómer Flóris Art and History Museum have appeared in multiple foreign auctions (it is possible that in some auctions the price of these items reached a few tens of millions of forints).
Considering this and that the investigation has been going on for six months the gold coins might have been switched to fake ones years ago.
The police have already confiscated the fake coin collection of the museum during its investigation, which by the way is worth 500 million forints.
Incidentally, the area of the museum in Győr is an essential part of Hungarian cultural heritage since the most significant hun period, Avar, Lombard and Slavic relics are in its area of collection.
The museum director only stated that during the ongoing investigation, no new information is to be disclosed.
Featured image: https://www.facebook.com/pg/RomerMuzeum/