Police have detained a suspect in the theft of archaeological finds from a scientific institute on the Palace Embankment in St. Petersburg. This was announced on Wednesday, January 13, by the official representative of the Russian Interior Ministry Irina Volk.
“In the course of operational-search activities, officers of the Criminal Investigation Department of the St. Petersburg Main Directorate on Nevsky Prospect detained a 23-year-old unemployed resident of the Vyborg district of the city. Later, the involvement of an attacker in committing similar crimes on the territory of the Vasileostrovsky and Petrogradsky districts of St. Petersburg was established, ”Volk noted.
According to the investigation, the detainee was involved in the theft of historical treasures from the premises of two institutions – an institute on Roentgen Street and a branch of the archive on the Exchange Line of Vasilyevsky Island. The thefts were committed in late December 2020 – early January 2021.
During the search, the burglary weapons were seized from the suspect, as well as part of the stolen, including a fragment of a seal from a 12th century manuscript, which was kept in the archives on Vasilievsky Island, worth about 8 million rubles. The man was detained.
The report of the theft from the building of the scientific institute on the Palace Embankment was received by the police on January 6. An employee of the institute said that an unknown person damaged the padlock on the metal door of the basement, then opened the front door to one of the offices and stole 26 items found during archaeological research from the metal box. The approximate amount of damage was about 5 million rubles, writes Gazeta.ru.
In early November, the director of the Russian State Military-Historical Archive, Alexander Priyutov, reported to the police that the valuable historical paper had been lost. On the fact of the appeal, a pre-investigation check was started.