STA, 11 February 2021 - The Slovenian and Hungarian police have prevented what would have been a lucrative forgery business. Suspects apprehended last year in Ljubljana had attempted to earn three million euro by selling forged manuscripts that partly featured pages of authentic medieval religious books, the General Police Department said Thursday.
The Hungarian transnational crime authorities were tipped off in the summer of 2019 that a number of persons were looking for buyers for allegedly hundreds of years old medieval books or manuscripts.
The Hungarian authorities later learned that the suspects were Hungarian as well as foreign citizens and that the alleged forgery ring sought to sell three leather manuscripts containing religious motifs that are presumed to have originated from the Middle East, the General Police Department said today.
The Slovenian and Hungarian authorities joined forces to conduct an undercover investigation in Slovenia launched by the European Investigation Order. The suspects were identified and information about their meeting with a potential foreign buyer in Ljubljana uncovered.
The arrests followed in Slovenia's capital in August last year when five suspects, two Hungarian citizens, two Slovenian citizens and a Croatian citizen, were apprehended and three items or books seized.
The authorities conducted interviews with the suspects as well as house searches. The confiscated books were handed over to the Hungarian authorities in September.
Expert analyses of the forgeries showed that the items had been made to appear as authentic as possible, including by containing individual pages of genuine religious books. Additional authentication has indicated that some pages originate from the 7th century, while others belong to the period between the 12th and 16th centuries, the police said.
The investigation and further expert analyses in Hungary are ongoing to establish the source of the confiscated artefacts. The authentic parts of the books are deemed protected cultural heritage in line with Hungary's law and international conventions.
