Police have swept through Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery as part of an investigation into contraband art smuggling.
Officers arrived at the gallery, which houses a world-renowned collection of Russian art, on Tuesday without warning and questioned a number of employees.
“The investigators have already left, and while the investigation is ongoing we will not comment further,” a representative of the gallery said.
A statement from Russia’s investigative committee said its officers were searching the Tretyakov after a 33-year-old man was detained at the customs check at Vnukovo airport in Moscow last week.
The man declared he was carrying five paintings with a total value of 180,000 roubles (£2,400), but the documentation he was carrying about the value of the paintings was apparently false. The paintings were really worth at at least 1.9m roubles (£25,000), the officials claimed.
LifeNews, a news website with close links to the Russian security services, claimed a scheme had been uncovered that enabled rich collectors living abroad to receive Russian masterpieces by acquiring fake export documentation.
The agency claimed one of those ordering the works was former Russian official Alfred Kokh, who fled the country after a court case was opened against him. “Haha, what nonsense,” Kokh wrote on Facebook about the latest allegations.
LifeNews said the works involved in the current investigation were by a number of well-known artists painting in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including Valentin Serov. Any work by Serov, however, would be likely to fetch much more than even the upper valuation given by investigators.
The head of the gallery’s early 20th-century art department denied the museum had done anything wrong, LifeNews reported. She said works more than 100 years old cannot be removed from the country without the permission of the culture ministry, so the gallery could not have been involved.
The previous director of the Tretyakov, Irina Lebedeva, was fired in February. Lebedeva had been criticised by museum workers, and in 2011 an anonymous letter appeared online accusing the gallery’s leadership of corruption.
None of the museum’s employees have been charged in the current investigation, but a source in the investigative committee told Interfax news agency that after analysis of documents from the gallery, it was possible some employees could have their status changed from witnesses to suspects.
