[Кирилл Сызранский]

In Russia in 2009, steal the artistic and historical value of 72 million rubles

In Russia in 2009, there were more than 1,1 thousand thefts art-historical and cultural values. The amount of material loss from these crimes amounted to 72 million rubles.

These figures were given on Thursday, Deputy Chief of the Center operational guidance to the non-departmental guard Interior Minister Vladimir Kulikov. The main causes of vulnerability of objects from the robbers he called the lack of modern means of protection and alarm systems, ITAR-TASS.

The most significant increase in reported theft of art-historical and cultural values stated in Irkutsk, Kursk, Novgorod, Penza, Smolensk region and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District, said at the MVD.

According to Kulikov, during this period the police intercepted a 12 criminal violations of the historical and archival value. Thus, based on investigating criminal cases, recovered 14 million rubles, the owners returned to the antiquities of $ 6 million rubles.

In turn, the deputy chief of the Criminal Investigation Department (DepUR) MVD of Russia, Militia Colonel Viktor Ishchenko said last November that the large number of crimes committed under the order by organized criminal groups.

According to him, often works of art, particularly antiques, stolen targeted for export abroad. For example, DepUR Ministry of Internal Affairs and Investigation Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 2008, suspended the activity of an organized criminal group, which by some estimates, exported abroad, including in the United States, 50 containers of cultural values. In the case of a U.S. citizen had been arrested and two in Russia on one of them - expert of the Ministry of Culture, which gave out false authorization to export.

Ishchenko said that the theft from the misuse of official position is the most dangerous, because sometimes revealed through the years and decades. And sometimes criminals substitute copies of paintings, for example, was the painting by Aivazovsky in the Astrakhan Museum of Fine Arts.

One reason for this situation are significant deficiencies in the recording and storage of values, lack of full descriptions and photographic images of objects, said Deputy Chief DepUR. In a number of museums exhibits are not included with the 1940-ies: for example, in the department of the Hermitage, where in 2006 was committed theft, reconciliation items not carried out since 1978, and fotofiksirovano was only 10%of stolen items, he said.

 http://www.newsru.com/cinema/18mar2010/navorovali.html