The EU detained Georgian citizens who stole rare publications of Russian writers from libraries. After the theft, the books were sold at auctions in Russia

Members of a criminal group suspected of stealing antique and rare books from European libraries were detained in four EU countries and Georgia. This was reported by the press service of Europol.

According to European police, the criminals stole rare books from national and historical libraries in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Switzerland. Their target was mainly books by Russian writers, in particular the first editions of Alexander Pushkin or Nikolai Gogol.

When visiting libraries, detainees asked to be shown antiquarian books, pretending that they had a “special, academic interest.” They then carefully measured and photographed the books. After a few days, weeks or months, the criminals returned and asked for access to the same books, but this time they “returned counterfeit books.” According to experts, the copies were of “excellent quality.”

In other cases, suspects “simply broke into libraries,” European police said in a statement.

According to investigators, in total the criminal group stole at least 170 books worth about 2.5 million euros. Some of the stolen books were sold through auction houses in St. Petersburg and Moscow, which “effectively makes them irretrievable.”

According to Europol, on April 24, four suspects were detained in Georgia and Latvia. Three suspects were detained in Estonia, France and Lithuania, and two more are under judicial supervision in France. All detainees are citizens of Georgia. During the operation, law enforcement officers searched 27 places where more than 150 books were seized.

According to The Guardian, in May 2023, the library of Vilnius University discovered the loss of 17 rare Russian-language books, and the University of Warsaw – 79 books. In addition, in October, library staff in Geneva discovered the loss of several books, including lifetime editions of Pushkin’s works. The Berlin State Library also reported the disappearance of books; The Robber Brothers, Boris Godunov and Pushkin’s Prisoner of the Caucasus disappeared from its collections.

In France, book thefts were reported by the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. In 2023, the library was visited 40 times by a 48-year-old Georgian citizen who stated that he was writing a dissertation on “Democracy in Russian Literature of the 19th Century” and needed first editions of the works of Pushkin, Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov and Fyodor Dostoevsky. In the fall, library staff discovered that the books, whose value was estimated at 450 thousand euros, were missing and replaced with copies.