Rare books stolen from Geneva library 

A view of the Geneva library, from which rare Russian volumes were stolen. Keystone/Martial Trezzini

The European police authority Europol, in co-operation with other police forces, stopped four suspected thieves of antique and rare books in Georgia and Latvia on Wednesday. The gang is believed to have stolen at least 170 books from various libraries in Europe, including in Geneva. 

Europol estimates the value of the stolen goods at around €2.5 million (CHF2.4 million), it said on Thursday. Some of the stolen artefacts were sold at auctions in St Petersburg and Moscow. These are now effectively unrecoverable. 

During the arrests on Wednesday, 150 books were seized. Europol and its partners had already stopped five suspects in various countries, according to a press release. A total of nine people were stopped. The Swiss federal police authority Fedpol was part of the investigation team. 

Geneva library targeted

The gang stole books from libraries in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Switzerland in 2022 and 2023. The thieves targeted rare and mostly Russian books. 

One of the targets of the series of thefts was the library in Geneva. Criminal proceedings have been opened and are still ongoing, the Geneva public prosecutor’s office said on Thursday in response to an enquiry. 

The theft was committed by two people at the end of October 2023. Three rare works, including a collection by Alexander Pushkin, were taken. Their total value is estimated at over CHF173,000 ($190,000). 

Books replaced with copies 

In some cases, the thieves posed as academics in the libraries in order to obtain the books, according to the Europol press release. In a first step, they photographed and measured the books in order to make copies. During a second visit, they replaced the original books with the copies. According to experts, these were of “excellent quality”. 

In other cases, the thieves broke into the libraries and took what they wanted. In preparation, they first made visits to the buildings. Due to the repetitive nature of the thefts, Europol was able to establish a connection between the various cases and set up a cross-national investigation network. 

Adapted from German by DeepL/kc/ts

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