The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia reported on April 25 that four people have been arrested in Georgia for organizing the theft of rare books from European libraries worth hundreds of thousands of Euros, including a 19th-century French-language book allegedly stolen from the National Library of Paris. The investigation continues to identify other perpetrators.
The bust was conducted with the joint efforts of the Georgian, Lithuanian, French, and Swiss law enforcement agencies within the framework of the international investigative team created with the support of Eurojust.
According to the investigation, Georgian citizens set up an organized criminal group to steal and resell rare books in Europe in 2022. “According to the premeditated criminal scheme, the members of the organized group were to take books by 19th-century classic writers to national and university libraries in France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland, Poland, and the Czech Republic. They would secretly acquire these books and then replace them with high-quality copies of the originals,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.
The detainees have been charged with subsections “A” and “B” of Article 177, Part 4 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which provides for imprisonment for 6 to 10 years.
The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia thanked the law enforcement agencies involved in the operation, emphasizing that “the fight against transnational crime is of paramount importance” for the Office and reiterating “readiness for effective international cooperation in this regard in the future.”
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