The Civil Guard’s Operation Biblion allowed the arrest of a Hungarian who had stolen 67 historical maps throughout Spain. Then, Zsalt Vamos, known as ‘Usain Bolt’ for his quick escape, vanished.
The civil guards who chased him throughout Spain They called him ‘Usain Bolt’ because every time they went to catch it, it escaped. For a year, the researchers carried out the hunt for Europe’s best library thiefa Hungarian citizen who used several false identities and whom they baptized with the name of the fastest man in history, the Jamaican athlete, Olympic athletics champion and world record holder in the 100 meter dash.
Zsalt Come on, That’s what it’s really called bolt thief, was arrested in 2009 in Pamplona, accused of stealing at least 67 maps of great historical value in libraries throughout the country, from Pamplona to the monastery of El Escorial, passing through Toledo, Soria, Salamanca, Valladolid and Logroño.
Some time later, when the time came, the thief did not appear at trial and his current whereabouts are unknown although, as OPEN CASE has learned, he has spent time in Spain. His last trail is lost in Torremolinos. He has at least one house in his country, Hungary, and another in the Dominican Republic, the place of origin of his last known girlfriend and with whom he was arrested 14 years ago. It was the last time they saw him.
Zsolt Come on, in one of the images used on their fake IDs. On the right, during one of his visits to Spain.
| OPEN CASE
His couple, a Dominican beauty, was her weak point, according to the summary and case reports. When the Civil Guard arrived in Pamplona asking about the thief, the hotel receptionist had forgotten his face, but he remembered perfectly his companion, the woman who had reserved room 608 in her name, Evelyn. She and the man, she told them, had gone to the pharmacy. The agents only had to wait for them to return to the hotel to stop them when they went to collect their suitcases.
Four countries, four names
In just over a yearUsain Bolt He had stolen maps throughout half of Spain (investigators would later verify that he also did it in Portugal and Germany, among other places). He used false documentation to travel in rental cars and registered in the libraries that he was going to loot under false names.
Said to be Slovak, Czech, Finnish and Lithuanian. It was presented as Anton Ziska (in the General Archive of Navarra and the National Library of Portugal), but it was also Gyula Stpocz, Gabor Jozsef Cservenka and Romualdas Darginavicius.
Several of the passports and documentation used by Zsolt Vamos to commit his robberies in Spain.
| OPEN CASE
His modus operandi was almost perfect. “The means of extracting the leaves from the volumes consists mainly of mutilate the books extracting the pages he wants by using a sharp object, which must be small to bypass security controls,” reflect the reports from the Civil Guard. Thus, the thief hid two small bladesone inside a glasses case and another inside the wallet where he carried his credit cards.
In one year, he stole historical maps worth more than 300,000 euros and caused half a million in damage. The Civil Guard followed his steps through Hungary, his country, and the Dominican Republic, his girlfriend’s place of origin.
To cut the pages of books, Bolt sometimes used the inside of hard collars of the shirts, which serve as plastic blades. He would cut and cut the sheet that she wanted to steal, he would go for specific maps, a shot made. Most of the documents he stole were commissioned, especially Ptolemy’s maps.
The total assessment of the damage caused to Spanish heritage by cutting historical books was valued at 528,500 euros. The value of the maps he stole exceeded 350 thousand, according to reports from the Civil Guard. Ziska took plates of the pioneers of cartography and maps of the 16th century: Ptolemy, Petrus Apianus, Abraham Ortelius and Jerome Giravaamong others.
He used cutters and hard collars on his shirts to cut the sheets of the maps he stole.
| OPEN CASE
When he was arrested with his partner, Zsolt Vamos also had an agenda. From the analysis of this documentation, investigators discovered that the man was very methodical with his thefts and his loot. The maps of America that he stole He sent them to the Dominican Republic, those he stole from Europe, for example those from France, he sent to Hungary, as reflected in the summary of operation Biblion.
Agents from the Heritage Group traveled to both countries. In his house in Hungary, located next to Lake Balaton and with private jetty, had plans, maps, books, including one that he had stolen during his visit to the library of the University of Valladolid. There was documents stolen from under the bed, according to the investigations.
Color notes
The maps he had already stolen appeared in the agenda with red and black annotations along with the dates on which he had gone to the libraries and the title of the work. Also, with a vee signsimilar to those “seen” or “received” from any office or ministry report.
Along with these notes, there were others without date data or the “seen” sign. Civil Guard investigators suspected that they were referring to “libraries that he planned to visit” before being arrested.
The thief’s agenda, with notes on objectives in Logroño, the Complutense University (Madrid), Salamanca and Valladolid.
| OPEN CASE
Among those places that the other Usain Bolt was going to “visit” the Civil Guard report includes libraries in 28 provinces, from Asturias (general library and ancient collection of Oviedolibrary of Gijón) to Catalonia (three libraries in Barcelona, one in Girona and another in Tarragona), passing through that of the Sanctuary of Loyola (in Azpeitia, Guipúzcoa), the Royal Academy and the Historical Archive of Madrid and even “working” visits to libraries in the Balearic Islands (Palma de Mallorca) and the Canary Islands (University of La Laguna).
Usain Bolt He did not testify after being detained. His partner, the young and attractive Dominican woman, did. She claimed that she made her living as a dealer and that her husband “bought and sold cars” for a living. She also said that they had been married for three years and that they had visited Spain four times. She did admit, however, that in her house in the Dominican Republic they had “framed” at least “three old maps” of which she said she did not know the origin.
“Train Robbery”
The Civil Guard recovered the 67 maps and returned them to their owners. Zsolt Vamos and his partner were released. He was charged, but did not appear at trial for his thefts. Since then, he has vanished, although traces of him have appeared in Torremolinos and other parts of Spain. When someone – in the end it was an electrician – stole the Codex Calixtinus of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, the Hungarian Usain Bolt was the first suspect. But the police verified that those days in 2011, he was resting on the beaches of the province of Malaga.
It is a mystery what has happened to the other Bolt, Ziska Vamos in these years. Investigators doubt that a professional of her talent and dedication has retired. He lived practically dedicated to robberies. It was his world. In one of the diary notes that the Civil Guard intercepted, the thief, who had settled in Toledo those days in 2009, wrote a note about a couple of cinemas in the area. Next to it, he wrote down the address, the schedule and the movie he had chosen: it starred Denzel Washington and John Travolta. It was called “Train Robbery”.