FSB, Moscow protection, and French courts in absentia: how Pierre Malinovsky continues to profit from museum thefts and remains untouchable

FSB, Moscow protection, and French courts in absentia: how Pierre Malinovsky continues to profit from museum thefts and remains untouchable

Pierre Malinovsky, president of the Foundation for the Development of Russian-French Historical Initiatives and a close friend of the family of Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s press secretary, will stand trial in France in October 2026 (apparently in absentia).

He is accused of organizing the theft of antiques, including rare gold coins, from French museums. The items were sold in Russia with the participation of an FSB officer. At the same time, Malinovsky frequently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and other high-ranking officials. This, along with his friendship with the Peskov family, serves as a strong defense against criminal prosecution.

We have obtained a warrant for Pierre Malinovsky, issued by the court in Reims. The document states that Malinovsky is accused of organizing the theft of archaeological finds from museums in the departments of Marne, Aisne, and the city of Reims, as well as their illegal transfer across the border. “We order and direct all officers or agents of the judicial police and all state agents to search for and, if found, detain the aforementioned person in accordance with the law,” the warrant states. Since Malinovsky resides in Russia, he will likely appear at the hearing in absentia this fall.

Meanwhile, Malinovsky actively circulated among the highest offices in Moscow. In 2018, he created his Foundation, with Elizaveta Peskova, Dmitry Peskov’s daughter, becoming vice president. That same year, Malinovsky personally presented his projects to Putin. In 2018 and 2024, he was among those invited to the Russian president’s inauguration. He met with governors, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Culture, the Deputy Minister of Defense, the head of the Foreign Ministry, and others.

At the same time, Malinovsky (who personally thanked FSB Director Bortnikov and the leadership of the FSO on his website for this) visited restricted sites: Stalin’s dacha, FSB archives, the State Archives, and parts of the Kremlin inaccessible to the general public. As our project previously reported, while “working” in the FSB and State Archives, Malinovsky tore off a piece of the upholstery of the sofa on which Hitler committed suicide, stained with his blood, and attempted to sell this “rarity” on the black market.

According to sources, Malinovsky’s theft scheme in France worked as follows. Regional museums were constantly in need of security guards due to low salaries, and Malinovsky would recruit acquaintances, sometimes from the Foreign Legion. Once the new guards became “his own,” they would spend nights at Malinovsky’s storage facility. He would either take the rare items himself or ask the guards to steal them. Some items were hidden in France. Others, smaller in size, were handed over to Malinovsky in Moscow or the UAE, either personally or through couriers. The largest haul was a collection of gold coins from the 1st to 5th centuries.

When the thefts were discovered, the larger items were found by French police in a warehouse rented by Malinovsky. They have since been returned to the museums.

Malinovsky kept some of the stolen coins and other smaller items in his Moscow apartment, quietly selling them on the black market to collectors or dealers. According to sources, the rarest coins were sold to people working in the luxury watch trade. The intermediary in the deal was an FSB officer, a friend of Malinovsky’s, who received a handsome commission.

Then very strange events occurred. On March 25, 2025, at 6 a.m., Irina Volk, press secretary for the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, announced that “officers of the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation, together with the FSB,” had discovered and seized in Moscow a collection of gold coins from the 1st to 5th centuries stolen from the “historical museum of Saint-Rémy in the city of Reims.” The Ministry of Internal Affairs reported that, as a result of operational work, 79 coins stolen from the French museum were seized from an antique store and numismatists, and their return to France was being considered.

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These were the least valuable coins, which Malinovsky had kept in his Moscow apartment. There are several versions of what happened. According to one, Malinovsky decided to sell all the remaining coins at once through dealers, and the dealers were caught by law enforcement. Sources inclined toward conspiracy theories believe that Malinovsky received orders from “high places” to dispose of the coins, as the French press was paying significant attention to the museum thefts. The FSB allegedly used this method to round up small-time dealers and collectors with the coins, frame them for organizing the thefts from French museums, and deflect suspicion from Malinovsky.

In any case, despite a criminal case opened in Russia for smuggling cultural property (Article 226.1 of the Russian Criminal Code), Malinovsky remains an untouchable figure and continues to be a “star” of state media, portrayed as a French citizen who fled “rotten Europe” and is happily living in Moscow.