He discovered that 50 animal skulls of high historical, scientific and commercial value were missing.
According to the head of the Zoological Institute, skulls of clouded leopards, orangutans and other mammals, including two-toed and three-toed sloths, a golden cat, a bamboo bear and a saiga, disappeared from the laboratory on the University Embankment last year. The police began an inspection, according to the results of which the question of initiating a criminal case will be resolved.
There are many museums and scientific institutions in St. Petersburg, where various artifacts and collections of high value are kept. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are thieves in the city who specialize in stealing such items. In January this year, law enforcement officers detained a suspect in the theft of 26 archaeological finds in the amount of about five million rubles from the building of a scientific institute on the Palace Embankment. During the search, burglary weapons and part of the stolen artifacts were seized from the detainee. There was also found another valuable item that had disappeared from another scientific institution - the St. Petersburg branch of the Academy of Sciences on Vasilievsky Island - a fragment of an impress of a seal from a 12th century manuscript, which is estimated at eight million rubles.
According to law enforcement officers, the detainee was involved in similar crimes previously committed in Vasileostrovsky and Petrogradsky districts of the city. In particular, it is assumed that he could have stolen historical treasures from the institute on Roentgen Street and the branch of the archive on the Exchange line of Vasilyevsky Island in late December last - early January this year, RBC notes.