The criminal organization targeted at the end of April by an operation coordinated by Europol had notably hit the Paul-Valéry University of Montpellier.
They carried out scouting in 2023 at the library of the Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 University, they took action at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF) in Paris, as well as at the École nationale supérieure de Lyon (ENS ). Several members of an astonishing international network, specializing in the theft of original editions of great authors of Russian literature, were the target of a vast operation coordinated by Europol, on January 24, in Georgia and Latvia, after a first wave of arrests in France last November.
Around a hundred police officers searched 27 sites, arrested four suspects and recovered more than 150 books, at least one of which had been stolen in 2023 in France, while similar thefts have been recorded for two years in the Czech Republic, Estonia, in Finland, Germany, Poland and Switzerland.
170 books stolen, damage of 2.5 million euros
“This criminal group would be responsible for the theft of at least 170 books, causing financial damage amounting to approximately €2.5 million, and an immeasurable loss of assets for society. Some of these historic objects were sold at auction at Saint Petersburg and Moscow, thus making them irrecoverable,” specifies the European police organization, which has centralized information from around ten countries concerned.
Because since 2022, a gang of Georgians, claiming to be academics, has been at the heart of suspicion. They asked to consult in the largest European libraries original editions of the jewels of 19th century Russian literature: Pushkin, Gogol Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. The director of the library of the University of Warsaw resigned after the theft of the entire collection of Pushkin editions (more than a million euros in damage), that of Vilnius estimates the loot stolen by The thieves.
Some flee directly with the works, taking advantage of staff inattention, as at the ENS in Lyon, where an edition of Boris Godunov from 1825, estimated at €70,000, disappeared. Others have a much more sophisticated technique: they come several times and spend hours studying the works, photographing and measuring them meticulously. Afterwards, several libraries discovered that the original books had been replaced by very well-executed forgeries. Nine extremely rare editions of Pushkin and Lermontov were stolen from the BNF de l’Arsenal, in the 4th arrondissement of Paris, between March and October last year. Estimated cost: €650,000!
Faced with these thefts, an alert was issued to librarians, and an investigation opened by police officers from the Central Office for Combating Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCBC). University officials are opening their eyes: they are right.
“A Russian-speaking user showed up the week of October 2, 2023 at the Ramon Llul library asking if we had such editions. He left quickly since we did not have any old works in Russian. As he seemed quite suspicious, insistent, we contacted the police department in charge of the investigation”, we indicate at the University Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3. The police examined the video surveillance images of the campus, but the individual, visibly come to scout, was not one of those already identified.
A “structured, organized and itinerant” network.
At the beginning of November 2023, Mikheil Z., a 48-year-old Georgian, wanted on an arrest warrant for the Vilnius and Warsaw flights, was arrested at Brussels airport. He is also the mysterious researcher who allegedly stole the works from the BNF. At the end of November, Valerian R., a 57-year-old Georgian, was in turn imprisoned in France after being arrested in Doubs.
The latest arrests complete the picture already drawn up by the OCBC police officers: a “structured, organized and itinerant network, made up of experienced criminals”, certainly attracted by the lure of profit and the low risks of these very profitable thefts. But the hypothesis of a more political and large-scale project “aimed at repatriating this precious cultural heritage which has become symbolic and of identity” is not excluded, in a country obsessed with nationalism where Vladimir Putin continues to praise the identity , even Russian cultural superiority: the flights began two months after the attack on Ukraine.
The affair also reminds us that our libraries contain real treasures, which must be protected from covetousness. In February 2022, a network made up of Poles and a Hungarian, in cahoots with an antiques dealer from Berlin, was heavily sentenced in Béziers for having stolen 82 geographical maps, cut out from 16th century books, notably from the library of the faculty of medicine in Montpellier, but also in Avignon and Clermont-Ferrand.
