Six Georgians Sentenced in Paris for Theft of Rare Books from French Libraries

A Paris court sentenced six Georgian nationals to prison terms ranging from an 18-month suspended sentence to seven years for the theft of Russian literary classics from libraries in Paris and Lyon. The stolen items included a first edition of Alexander Pushkin’s “Boris Godunov” from 1825, along with works by Mikhail Lermontov and Nikolai Gogol.

The National Library of France alone reported losses valued at 770,000 euros.

The defendants were convicted in the night from Friday to Saturday of criminal conspiracy with intent to commit an offence. Some were also found guilty of stealing cultural property on public display. , 50, received the longest sentence of seven years in prison and a permanent ban from French territory after deportation.

He had previously been sentenced in Lithuania to three years and four months for the theft of 19th-century publications valued at more than 600,000 euros. He had earlier received a three-year-and-six-month sentence in Estonia for similar offences.

Two other defendants were tried in absentia after being arrested in Georgia. Mikheil Z. and Beqa T. were temporarily handed over to France for trial following their convictions in the Baltic states. According to the investigation, the thieves visited libraries, photographed and measured rare volumes, then replaced them with near-undetectable facsimiles.

None of the stolen works has been recovered. The thefts form part of a wave targeting libraries across Europe since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Similar incidents occurred in Germany, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic, prompting the creation of a joint investigation team under Europol and Eurojust that led to arrests in 2024.