Nine Georgians arrested for theft of rare books from national libraries: “2.5 million euros in damage” | Abroad
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Nine Georgians have been arrested for theft of rare books in an international police operation. It concerns a criminal operation in which ‘valuable antique books’ were stolen from national libraries across Europe. This was reported by Europol, the EU police agency.
The thieves worked expertly. They took original books from the library shelves and replaced them with counterfeit copies. They mainly targeted 19th-century Russian literature. For example, the University of Warsaw was one of the targets. Original works by influential authors Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol were stolen there.
In total, the criminal group is probably responsible for the theft of at least 170 books, resulting in financial damage of approximately 2.5 million euros and an immeasurable patrimonial loss to society
Europol
“Excellent quality copies”
According to Europol, the thieves posed as academics to gain access to the libraries. After entering the reading rooms, they “measured the books carefully and took photos before returning them.” Days, weeks, or sometimes even months later, they returned to exchange the books for near-perfect copies. Sometimes they “relied on a more crude approach” and simply monitored the collections, decided what was interesting and later broke in to steal the books, police said.
Europol raided more than 100 offices in France, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Switzerland on Wednesday. Nine people were arrested and more than 150 books were seized. The international operation came about after French authorities alerted Europol after several books disappeared from their libraries.
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