Stephen Blumberg - the greatest in the history of the book thief





For twenty years, Stephen Blumberg stole more than 20,000 rare books and some 11 000 ancient manuscripts, he consistently went around 268 libraries of major universities in the US and Canada. The total value of the stolen books exceeded $ 20 million.

Bloomberg suffered from schizophrenia and manic devotion to books: his collection he kept in cupboards at home and constantly took up the reading of one or the other book. Probably, he assessed their activities as a certain kind of adventure, and it confirms the richness of methods by which Bloomberg stole publication. He stole and forged documents, rubbed into the trust to employees of the library, picked up the keys to the stores, and even got into them through the mine ventilation and elevator shafts.

He was not spoiled and has not sold any of the stolen books, and the moment of arrest, his house resembled a warehouse of a major publishing house. After a long time, Stephen became a regular reader of the prison library, in front of the FBI and book experts faced the task of a thorough identification of the stolen books - many libraries are even unaware of the loss of the funds. In 1995, all the books of the so-called "Collections Bloomberg" were entered into the database The Book Return, and only after several months of intensive work all got stolen library books back. Along with the books in the library also came a small documentary about Bloomberg - one copy of each film.

via factroom.ru

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