Police arrested six Georgians in Vienna suspected of stealing a Stradivarius violin worth an estimated EUR 2.5 million and a Vuillaume violin, worth EUR 120,000, Austrian police said on June 6.
The instruments, stolen from a local musician?s flat in city-center Vienna, were recovered from an apartment occupied by six Georgian asylum seekers.
“The fact that alcohol and clothes were also stolen from the flat led us to immediately rule out a contracted theft. Instead, it brought to mind the modus operandi of a Georgian gang wanted for 21 other burglaries,” Police Maj. Manfred Briegl of Vienna’s criminal investigations division was quoted by AFP and BBC as saying at a news conference on June 6.
This post is also available in: ქართული (Georgian) Русский (Russian)