Ephrat Livni, The New York Times ; ‘Operation Pushkin’: Paris Trial Puts Spotlight on Rare-Book Heists
One by one, valuable works by Russian masters like Pushkin and Gogol were disappearing from libraries across Europe. Now six defendants are being prosecuted.
"The latest chapter in the saga of an international book heist that stripped prominent libraries across Europe of more than 170 rare Russian literary works is being written in a Paris courtroom this week.
Alexander Pushkin, the 19th-century poet and novelist considered the father of modern Russian literature, is a main character. Most of the thefts targeted his works — worth nearly $3 million in total — from libraries in the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland.
The other characters have a less literary pedigree. They are six Georgian defendants standing trial, most unnamed by the French authorities, on accusations of conspiracy and theft...
The crimes stunned librarians, bibliophiles and prosecutors alike because of their scale, the prominence of the libraries targeted and the near-singular focus of the suspects. The investigation became known as “Operation Pushkin.”
The thieves used different background stories, giving various reasons for their interest in rare Russian books, according to a law enforcement arm of the European Union, the Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation. They often worked in pairs, with one distracting librarians while the other replaced the original work with a copy, usually after multiple visits."
