Three natives of Georgia have been detained in Paris on on charges of stealing rare editions of Alexander Pushkin from libraries, reports UNN with reference to Journal du Dimanche.
It is known that one man and two women, aged 24, 26 and 44. They were taken to the Central Bureau for Combating against Illicit Art Trafficking (OCBC) in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
The investigation suggests that the detainees are members of an of an international criminal group specializing in the theft of works of art and bibliographic rarities.
The first theft in France, according to the investigation, was carried out by the group in July, in the library of Lyon, the original was replaced with a copy. In October, two people broke into the National Institute of Languages and Civilizations, took several books and manuscripts, and fled in a car with an accomplice waiting for them. an accomplice was waiting for them.
There are also reports of the theft of Pushkin's manuscripts, as well as as well as rare editions of Gogol and Lermontov, in Lithuania, from the library of Vilnius University library. In early November, the suspect, a 38-year-old man man was detained in Belgium in early November. He was allegedly linked to accomplices in France.