Three people arrested and indicted after the theft of Pushkin manuscripts from the Inalco library in Paris

Around ten manuscripts were stolen in Paris at the beginning of October, while libraries in Eastern Europe have experienced a wave of looting of Russian works in recent months.

Three people were indicted on Friday in Paris as part of an investigation into the theft, from libraries, of manuscripts notably by the 19th century Russian poet and novelist Alexander Pushkin, we learned from a judicial source.

On the night of October 9 to 10, two people broke into the university library of the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Civilizations (Inalco), in the 13th arrondissement of the capital, by breaking the window of the entrance to using an iron bar, according to the same source. They came away with around ten manuscripts.

Earlier in the day, two people had asked to see works by Alexander Pushkin in original editions. The section of the Paris public prosecutor’s office responsible for organized delinquency first referred an investigation into theft committed by an organized gang to the Brigade for the Repression of Banditry (BRB). Investigators then made a connection with similar acts committed in Lyon in July.

The books were not found

The investigations have since been entrusted to the Central Office for the Fight against Trafficking in Cultural Property (OCLBC). They led to the arrest of three people on Monday, according to the judicial source, confirming information from the Sunday Journal (JDD).

At the end of their police custody, the three suspects were indicted on Friday by an investigating judge for participation in a criminal association and organized theft. One of them was placed in pre-trial detention, the other two under judicial supervision.

According to a source close to the case, it concerns a man, who was placed in pre-trial detention, and two women, from the same family and of Georgian nationality. The lawyers of the three suspects did not wish to react or were unable to respond to requests from AFP on Friday evening.

The stolen books were not found. One of them would be estimated at 60,000 euros. The final goal of these thefts has not yet been established, but a source close to the matter points out that the works of Russian classical authors have increased in value since the start of the war in Ukraine, against a backdrop of nationalism.

In Poland and the Baltics, in two years, shelves of 19th-century Russian literature were plundered from libraries, the originals having been replaced by copies.