European police smash rare book theft ring

The Hague: European police said Thursday they had busted a criminal gang suspected of snatching at least 170 rare books written by Russian literary gr...

The Hague: European police said Thursday they had busted a criminal gang suspected of snatching at least 170 rare books written by Russian literary greats such as Alexander Pushkin or Nikolai Gogol.

The suspected thieves posed as researchers at libraries, distracting staff while an accomplice replaced the valuable first editions with a copy of "outstanding quality", Europol said.

"In other cases, members simply broke into libraries and took books they had already seen earlier," said prosecutors in Lithuania.

The books "of high historical and cultural value" were stolen in seven different European countries and worth around 2.5 million euros ($2.4 million), authorities said.

Police arrested four Georgian citizens and raided 27 locations in Georgia and Latvia. One book was recovered and many others seized that are now being examined.