Police have arrested nine Georgians suspected of running a sophisticated criminal operation stealing valuable antique books – including an original Alexander Pushkin manuscript – from national libraries across Europe.
Shelves of 19th-century Russian-language literature had been ransacked over two years across several countries and replaced by fakes, Europol, the EU police agency revealed on Thursday.
The University of Warsaw, which was among the targets, last year reported the theft of first editions of works by the influential authors Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol.
Europol said the suspects sometimes posed as academics to gain access to the books in order to make counterfeits of “outstanding quality”.
While in the reading rooms “they would meticulously measure the books and take photographs before handing them back” – only to return days, weeks or months later to swap them with near perfect copies.
In other cases, they “relied on a more crude approach” and simply staked out the collection in national libraries, decided what was of interest and later broke in and stole the books, police said.
“In total, the criminal group is believed to be responsible for the theft of at least 170 books, causing financial damages amounting to around €2.5m [£2.1m] and an immeasurable patrimonial loss to society,” said Europol, which coordinated the operation involving more than 100 offices searching 27 properties in several countries on Wednesday.
Some of the stolen artefacts had been sold via auction houses in St Petersburg and Moscow, “effectively making them irrecoverable”, Europol added.
Four suspects in Georgia, three in Estonia, three in France and another in Lithuania were detained.
The international operation came about after French authorities notified Europol about losses in their libraries.
It then emerged that other countries had also experienced the loss of rare books and an operation was set up in France, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Switzerland to catch the thieves.
The EU’s police agency, Europol, said the gang were believed to be responsible for the theft of at least 170 books.
As part of the operation the police seized more than 150 books whose provenance they are now assessing.
The books were stolen over two years in 2022 and 2023 from national and historical libraries in France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Switzerland.
Last May Vilnius University’s library discovered 17 of its rare Russian-language books had gone missing while the University of Warsaw identified 79 books as missing, with an investigation showing books carrying their library stamps and catalogue numbers in a Russian auction house.
As part of the cross-border response, police also identified the theft of one rare book that had not yet been detected as lost by its library.
Even though Georgia is not in the EU, Europol was able to work with the Georgian authorities to locate several members of the organised criminal gang.
Hieronim Grala, a former diplomat, an expert in Russia policy and professor at the University of Warsaw told AFP last year that the theft of the Pushkin and Gogol books was “like gouging out the crown jewels.”