What does the Louvre jewellery heist have in common with the theft of heritage volumes by 19th-century Russian authors from several prestigious libraries in Paris and Lyon? In both cases, the haul is still missing. But in the case of the books, the courts have only just delivered their verdict.
Six Georgian nationals have been sentenced in Paris to terms ranging from 18 months’ suspended imprisonment to seven years in jail for the theft of Russian literary classics. Among the stolen items were works by Alexander Pushkin, including a first edition of “Boris Godunov” (1825), as well as texts by Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Gogol – a “genuine theft of treasures”, in the words of the prosecutor, who in his closing submissions described a “massive, organised operation, planned and executed with meticulous care and cynicism”.
The case is part of a wave of thefts targeting libraries across Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, attributed to an organised network potentially linked to Moscow.
The six defendants – five men and one woman – were all found guilty overnight from Friday to Saturday of criminal conspiracy to commit an offence, with some also convicted of stealing cultural property on display.
According to the investigation, the thieves would go to libraries to consult rare books, which they photographed and measured before returning to swap them for almost undetectable facsimiles. At the National Library of France (BnF) alone, the loss is estimated at 770,000 euros.
Two of them were tried in absentia, having already been arrested in Georgia, their home country, which does not extradite its own nationals.
A duo identified as Mikheil Z. and Beqa T. had already been convicted and jailed in the Baltic states for similar offences and was temporarily handed over to France to stand trial.
Mikheil Z., 50, received the harshest sentence: seven years in prison, together with a permanent ban from French territory once he has served his term and been deported. He had already been sentenced last year in Lithuania to three years and four months in prison for the organised theft of 19th-century publications valued at more than 600,000 euros.
Beqa T., 49, was sentenced to four years in prison, in addition to an earlier three-and-a-half-year sentence handed down in Estonia.
A drive to repatriate Russian heritage?
These thefts, which have also affected Germany, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, led to the creation of a joint investigation team under the aegis of Europol and Eurojust, resulting in several arrests in 2024.
In June 2024, the Russian auction house Litfond, which specialises in rare antiquarian books, included in its catalogue a second edition of the poem “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” by Alexander Pushkin, matching a copy stolen from the National Library of France (BnF).
The auction house told the French authorities it had documents proving it acquired the book from its owner in Russia between 2014 and 2015.
For French prosecutors, the thefts may be part of a broader strategy to repatriate Russian cultural heritage, against a backdrop of heightened tensions between Moscow and Europe since the invasion of Ukraine.
None of the stolen works has been recovered, but the lawyer for the National Library of France (BnF), Alexandre de Konn, quoted by AFP, said the institution “has not given up hope” of finding them.
Euronews contacted the BnF to ask for details of the security measures introduced or reinforced in its various spaces since the thefts, but had received no reply at the time of publication.
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