Hungarian map-robbing gang face jail time in France

French prosecutors on Thursday sought prison terms of up to seven years for a group of Hungarians on trial over accusations they stole rare maps worth millions of euros from a string of French libraries.

Published: 17 May 2018 16:47 CEST

Hungarian map-robbing gang face jail time in France

File photo: marzolino/Depositphotos

Investigators say the suspects, six men and a woman, honed a methodical scheme of presenting fake library cards in order to consult tomes from the 16th to 18th centuries in cities including Toulouse, Nancy and Lille.

They would then surreptitiously cut out the maps with craft knives, making off with historical prints worth an estimated four million euros ($4.7 million) between 2011 and 2013.

They were tripped up in 2012 when one of the accused was stopped and his car searched by Hungarian customs officers, who found 110 ancient maps, some of which had been stamped by the Toulouse public library in southern France.

Andras Katona, a self-described plumber, said he had bought the entire lot of maps — later valued at 450,000 euros — “at an Italian market from a gypsy who spoke 'Yugoslavian'.”

Hungarian officials alerted the French police, who determined the maps were indeed stolen from Toulouse.

The only suspect to admit taking the maps is Katona's cousin Karoly Forgo, 51, who has lived in southern France for the past 20 years.

He claims he acted alone after “powerful people” approached him about the job, but has refused to identify them during the trial, which began Monday in Bordeaux.

Prosecutors are seeking a five-year term for Forgo and sentences of two to three years for Katona, Forgo's wife Hedvig, and Gabor Dorogi, a drug addict who was convicted alongside Forgo for stealing freight consignments in Beziers, France, in 2013.

Tibor Szathmari, a 69-year-old antique dealer specialising in ancient maps, is facing seven years behind bars, while his associate, Pal Nagy, who claims to work at a Hungarian demolition firm, is facing six years.

Szathmari has denied the charges, though he has refused to clarify the source of his revenues — Hungarian investigators found two new 4×4 trucks and a Bentley valued at some 200,000 euros at his luxurious villa in Hungary.

“I've worked with antiques for half a century… I have hardly any money in my pockets,” he told the court this week.

Investigators have failed to determine where the maps were destined, though they suspect dealers in Britain and the US.

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The French Jewish community, the third largest in the world, has for months been on edge in the face of a growing number of attacks and desecrations of memorials.

“National police in Rouen neutralised early this morning an armed individual who clearly wanted to set fire to the city’s synagogue,” Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police responded at 6.45 am to reports of “fire near the synagogue”, a police source said.

A source close to the case told AFP the man “was armed with a knife and an iron bar, he approached police, who fired. The individual died”.

“It is not only the Jewish community that is affected. It is the entire city of Rouen that is bruised and in shock,” Rouen Mayor Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol wrote on X.

He made clear there were no other victims other than the attacker.

Two separate investigations have been opened, one into the fire at the synagogue and another into the circumstances of the death of the individual killed by the police, Rouen prosecutors said.

Such an investigation by France’s police inspectorate general is automatic whenever an individual is killed by the police.

The man threatened a police officer with a knife and the latter used his service weapon, said the Rouen prosecutor.

The dead man was not immediately identified, a police source said.

Asked by AFP, the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office said that it is currently assessing whether it will take up the case.

France has the largest Jewish community of any country after Israel and the United States, as well as Europe’s largest Muslim community.

There have been tensions in France in the wake of the October 7th attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, followed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

Red hand graffiti was painted onto France’s Holocaust Memorial earlier this week, prompted anger including from President Emmanuel Macron who condemned “odious anti-Semitism”.

“Attempting to burn a synagogue is an attempt to intimidate all Jews. Once again, there is an attempt to impose a climate of terror on the Jews of our country. Combating anti-Semitism means defending the Republic,” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF). wrote on X.

France was hit from 2015 by a spate of Islamist attacks that also hit Jewish targets. There have been isolated attacks in recent months and France’s security alert remains at its highest level.