ArmeniaNow  --  The Special Investigation Service of Armenia reports that during the recent two years books worth tens of thousand dollars have been stolen from the National Library of Armenia and the library of Yerevan State University (YSU).

The service filed a lawsuit on December 26, 2011, soon after an attempt of theft from the book depository of the National Library was prevented.

The investigation found out that books that have periodically disappeared from the National Library in fact were stolen with direct participation of the library’s security. (In total 150 books were stolen)

Yet in October 2011 Tigran Zargaryan, Director of the National Library of Armenia, appealed to the Police, reporting that books had disappeared from the library.

“There are Russian books, which were published in 1907 and 1910 among the stolen books, which may be of no great value here [in Armenia], but for example in Russia they are quite valuable,” Zargaryan says. “This phenomenon is quite irritating, because law enforcement [the security of the library] are also involved [in the robbery].”

According to preliminary investigation data, Georgian citizen Vazha Azariashvili has collaborated with the library’s security and exported the books to Russia and sold them there. He has also allegedly instigated to robbery Hasmik Durgaryan, Head of YSU Library Department of Ancient, Rare and Art Literature, who has sold 19 different books (worth about $15,000) to the Georgian and appropriated the money received from the sale.