Trafficking of illicit art and antiquities to Asian and Oceanic markets

(Tempo di lettura: 19 minuti)

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by Luca Manfredi and Bridget Murray

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When considering the trafficking of illicit art and antiquities it is standard practice to define the market as one of supply and demand. This definition is based on the simple model that one does not exist without another; without demand there would be no avenue to supply. Delving deeper into the market of supply and demand we see the world divided into “source” nations and “market” nations¹, with source supplying desirable cultural property, usually to meet an external demand. Source nations such as Mexico, Egypt and Cambodia are seen as countries which are economically poor, but have a wealth of cultural artefacts which exceed the internal demand. Market nations then are countries in which the demand for cultural artefacts far exceeds the supply, so they look to source nations to ‘fill the gap’ and feed the collector’s insatiable appetite for art and antiquities.

Collecting, owning, investing in and displaying cultural property is often found to be the prerogative of wealthy private and public museums and private collectors based in wealthy, Western countries. The desire to possess cultural objects can come from the collector’s desire to attain a particular status², or to enrich the collections of modern museums, which practice accumulation in a competitive marketplace. The motivations for collecting priceless cultural objects can be endless; however the looting, trafficking and illegal sale of antiquities to fulfill these market nation motivations causes real material harm to stakeholders along all points of the smuggling chain³. As Yates explains:

(Antiquities crime) is a “big picture” issue in that it pits the idea of a collective human past, a heritage of all humankind, which everyone has a right to access against the Western tenets of private property and individual responsibility⁴.

It is all too easy to buy into the mentality that the illicit antiquities market is a victimless crime. In reality the estimated mulit-billion dollar a year global illegal art and antiquities market often operates within larger criminal organisations, promoting theft, fraud, violent crime and increasingly, the direct financing of terrorism⁵. Beyond this, when an antiquity is looted, its place within the archaeological record is lost. Even if removed from its original resting place with care, a cultural object removed from its context becomes ‘orphaned in space and time’⁶ and it’s potential to act as a vital piece of information about the past is reduced to almost nothing. In essence, every looted antiquity is a lost antiquity; beautiful and ancient, but if not entirely pointless, then voiceless.

Often these buyers are unscrupulous when they buy antiquities or artworks on the international art market. As looting is destructive by nature, we can assume that in most cases there is a general awareness that the looting of heritage sites causes a loss of the archaeological context and, consequently, undermines knowledge of the past. Similarly, the illegal trafficking of art undermines its cultural value for a broader audience, community and culture. Despite understanding this, collectors, such as museums in their quest for cultural capital, create an insatiable demand for illicit objects. The illicit art and antiquities market, like the legitimate market, is driven by buyers who desperately want to acquire cultural objects. The difference between the legitimate and illicit market is that for the illicit market, buyers desperately want cultural objects; and are willing to do whatever it takes to get them.

Within the art market forged or stolen items have to be transitioned from illegal to apparently legal goods so that they can be transformed into what appears to be a legitimate piece of art. The outcome of successfully passing an illegal object as legitimate into the market is the potential to sell the piece through a legal auction house or art dealer, therefore opening the sale to a network of unassuming buyers. Generally, it is much easier to pass off a stolen piece of art or artefact in a market which is not already aware of its existence, therefore the ultimate destination of most illicit art and antiquities will be foreign markets.

The black market in works of art is becoming as lucrative as those for drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods and it is, in general, one of the most popular financial channels for recycling money proceeds from illegal activities⁷. This illicit market is fueled by both independent and organized thieves, with the latter usually acting as mediators between contractors and looters. The presence of organized crime in the art market, in the sense of groups or networks of professional criminals who use violence and corruption in the pursuit of illegal financial gain, such as mafia-type organizations, is known, however not widely evidenced⁸. Organized crime instead plays a part in the illegal art world with different aims, playing different roles. It can in fact: manage the entire service by selling stolen artworks, or illegally dug up, and then trafficking; act as an intermediary between private collectors and professional thieves when it is unable to offer professional services of theft; easily transport and commerce works of art in connection with drug trafficking activities; to have blackmail; purchase and resell artworks for the purpose of recycling⁹. While cases of amateur or simply opportunistic looters and smugglers are certainly not rare, realistically they are not organized or connected enough to smuggle to international markets without critical help from larger organizations.

In the Italian contest, the relationship between organized crime and the black market is an alarmingly real and pressing threat for the cultural and artistic heritage of Italy. The traditional Italian Mafia-type groups (especially located in south Italy, like Cosa Nostra, Camorra and ‘ndrangheta) exert their criminal influence on archaeological sites located in the territories where they command influence. Controlling and facilitating the national and international clandestine markets, these Italian Mafia-type groups use the illicit trade of works of art to launder their greater profits stemming from other criminal activities. However, the Italian experience shows that when organized networks are involved in thefts or clandestine excavations, this does not necessarily denote the involvement of traditional criminal associations like Mafia¹⁰.

Criminals focus their attention on artworks by following precise criteria:

– Vulnerable artefacts. Thieves focus on all those items they know to be of value and to be in vulnerable and unprotected places;

– The criterion of indiscriminate looting of poor countries and / or those with a large and difficult to control archaeological heritage: unprotected works of art can be subtracted with the least effort. In countries with a great archaeological heritage there is a large-scale looting and, as it is usually completely missing any kind of documentation of archaeological goods, they can be quickly and easily placed on both the national and international markets;

– Churches as a target: in countries where a great cultural heritage belongs to churches, a large number of thefts of silver and gold objects, tapestries, paintings and statues from religious institutions are inevitable;

– Choice of the artwork in relation to the demand or to the buyer: it is believed that the most valuable and highly recognizable pieces are stolen on a commission by private collectors. Medium-low and hard-to-find value objects are stolen to be sold to collectors as well as galleries and auction houses as legitimate pieces¹¹. Although this category of ‘made-to-order’ theft is well recognized, it is generally rare.

The broad global problem of antiquities smuggling

In a straightforward sense, cultural objects are looted and smuggled from a “source” country towards a demanding “market” country. If most of the time the source for antiquities are developing countries with an oversupply and vulnerability, and market countries are developed and richer nations, there are also cases in which rich countries can also be both markets and sources. An example of this dual market nature is Italy; an economically wealthy country, therefore a reasonable destination for imported art and antiquities, Italy also has a vast abundance of cultural heritage, which due to its abundance, is vulnerable to a lack of protection.

Trafficking of illicit art and antiquities is not a linear process. There is very rarely one person stealing, selling and profiting from the crime. Rather traffickers rely on a chain of thieves/looters, middlemen, dealers, auction houses and a variety of other sources, to maximize the selling price of the smuggled objects¹². These criminals can use various “tools” to trade illicit artefacts, including fake documents, auction mechanisms, movement through numerous jurisdictions, and so on. Therefore smugglers are essentially a single ring in the illicit trade of art objects. They are often agents who work for a local dealer and are responsible for the sale of goods, which are usually not of high quality¹³.

As we saw, in antiquities and art trafficking there are many players, ranging from customs officials, dealers, museums and academics, etc. Each of these players fill all forms of roles. Only a small percentage of shipments can physically be checked by customs, and this is another weak link of the illicit trafficking chain. Another factor that can not be overlooked in the analysis of the causes of illegal looting, theft, and trafficking of works of art is the lack of controls placed on the buyers of these cultural objects, very often also museums and collections. Often art dealer policy can be defined as “no questions policy”. That is to say, these subjects have no obligation to ensure the origin of the cultural property¹⁴. Finally, criminals accustomed to conducting illicit trafficking across borders have a much easier international movement than information and cooperation law enforcement agencies exchange¹⁵. International cultural theft and trafficking take often rely on being able to take advantage of the law enforcement capabilities in both source and market countries. Often law enforcement capabilities are low when applied to the context of art crime, often wrongly considered a minor crime. However, increasingly more countries have a national art and antiquities enforcement unit dedicated to the protection of their cultural heritage¹⁶.

Of course, it is not said that dealers always have access to the international market: only a few have the skills and resources needed to make this leap forward and access this third level of activity. In fact, not only are adequate financial resources are required, but also a network of contacts both in the source and market country are essential. However, these are transactions based on mutually beneficial relationships and the ability of the dealer to build a stable, trustworthy network of correspondents.

Illegal antiquities and artworks are usually small and relatively portable and while their value is very high if compared to other commodities of the same scale, objects which fit the bill to be easily transported can often be worth a lot less on the illegal market than they would be on the legitimate market. The answer to this is relatively simple and can be seen in this basic example; a golden brooch is looted from a tomb in Macedonia and goes onto the illicit market. While buyers can see that the brooch is beautiful and that the raw materials are valuable, the unaware looters grabbed the object without noting where it was from, who it was buried with, whether there was anything alongside it and without having the ability to date it. Consequently, the brooch has no story, it is aesthetically beautiful and therefore still of value, but it is voiceless. Whereas, if the brooch had been found at a legitimate archaeological investigation we would know that the brooch was found alongside other objects sourced in Egypt; that the brooch belonged to a man wearing armor contemporary with Alexander the Great, therefore dating it to the 4^th century BC. Suddenly, with context, the object becomes infinitely more valuable. As T. Mueller explains, the difference between a looted artifact and one found in context is like ‘the difference between a page torn from a book and an entire book, set in a large library.’¹⁷

Inevitably, the legitimate market for art and antiquities runs directly alongside and interweaving with the illicit market. Then, between the licit and the illicit antiquities market, we also have the gray market, characterized by a “clean” trade tainted by the circulation therein of illicit antiquities. In other words, intentionally or not, there is a close convergence of legal and illegal activities in the art market¹⁸.

It is well known that antiquities looted from source countries travel through a complicated trafficking system to arrive at market nations where they can be sold by international dealers and auction houses to other dealers, private collectors, and museums. T. Mueller explains:

“Unlike other illicit goods such as drugs or arms, looted antiquities start dirty but end clean (at least in appearance), their illegal origins being laundered as they pass through trafficking networks. Without a detailed provenance – a documented chain of ownership – it’s impossible to know whether an object is fair or foul. Yet even many items that are collected legally lack a solid provenance, creating a dilemma that collectors, dealers and museum curators face with every potential purchase”.¹⁹

Objects can travel direct from source to market countries, or more often than not, pass through one or more transit states, which act as “free” ports for looted antiquities. Transit states can also have a laundering role, allowing the illicit cultural objects to enter, before creating new “identities” for the objects so they can be exported as legitimate antiquities. In this way an object looted from Italy may arrive in Australia with an export permit from a source country which has all the appearances of being legitimate.

One possible route followed by thieves or looters is to sell the stolen objects to a “middleman” who understands how the art market works in a particular country and therefore can open the possible avenues for the sale of the cultural object. The middleman can sell the objects in a city far from the place where they were stolen, selling them through an auction house or a dealer. Since small auction houses usually don’t print color catalogues of art works for their auctions, and because these catalogues have only a brief description of the work, they are the ideal place to sell lesser known stolen art works. While placing a stolen work of any visibility or reputation in larger auction houses represents a high risk, because of greater exposure and, hopefully, more stringent provenance tests²⁰.

The assumption that illegal art and antiquities are ultimately purchased through what are apparently legal transactions and that the final consumer believes they are buying legitimate pieces is a common occurrence. But, of course, there are also many cases in which the consumers knows, or should reasonably believe, that they are in possession of stolen art, because the object was bought outside of legitimate commercial channels or because they have not practiced due diligence. All people who operate in the commercial art and antiquities market are expected to practice, above all, due diligence. Where due diligence is ignored, lack-luster or not performed at all, is where we see otherwise credible institutions becoming players in the illicit trafficking market. A classic example of the harm that can come from not practising due diligence can be seen in the now famous case of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), who in 2008 purchased in ‘good faith’²¹ a 900-year-old bronze statue which had been smuggled from India. The NGA bought the statue of Shiva Nataraja for $5 million from Manhattan based art dealer, Subhash Kapoor. Kapoor had been running a sophisticated antiquities smuggling business, hidden by his legitimate New York art dealership, Art of the Past gallery. The National Gallery of Australia purchased the piece, as well as several others, after being provided with a provenance that had been forged by Kapoor. After discovering that the Shiva Nataraja had been stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu, the NGA returned the statute to India in 2004. The real issue for the National Gallery of Australia is not that they were fooled by a very sophisticated illegal operation, but that were they to have practiced due diligence in the purchase of these artifacts, they never would have purchased from Kapoor.

Recent research points to some notable international centers for the illicit art and antiquities trade, including; London, New York, Paris, Brussels, Hong Kong, Geneva, and Bangkok²². Often they are not only the end point in the chain of supply, but also a transit point for looted antiquities towards intercontinental destinations²³. Where in the past, general areas of Asia, for example, Singapore and Hong Kong were considered ‘transit portals’ for illicit antiquities²⁴, in recent years routes are evolving. The new routes of clandestine archaeological finds can end up all over Oceania, including destinations such as China, New Zealand and Australia, coming not only from traditional source countries and war zones, but also from destinations such as Europe.

The illicit market in Asia and Oceania

In European countries the places most affected by cultural thefts are museums, churches, private residences and both known and undiscovered archaeological sites. Types of most stolen artworks are paintings, sculptures and worship items²⁵. The movement of illicit art and antiquities from and to Europe is well known, the market often well organized and importantly, well recognized. Asia and more specifically Oceania on the other hand, are rarely considered market destinations for stolen art and antiquities.

In the particular example of Australia as a market destination for illicit cultural goods, there are two central reasons why the Australian market is considered protected from the international illicit trade. Firstly, an important feature of the Australian art market is that while there is some penetration of international art into the market, in general the vast bulk of works sold are sourced and produced by Australian artists²⁶, making an international piece highly visible. However the most important reason which excludes the Australia market from the illicit trade is that the market is highly concentrated, along with the country’s population. While the Australian art market is undoubtedly flourishing and relatively prosperous, the focus on Australian art and artists, coupled with the concentration of the art market in major urban centers, creates a form of insularity to the market that has a marked effect on the extent of illegal activity that can emerge²⁷. This same analysis can also be applied to countries such as New Zealand.

Recently however, experts are suggesting that the thriving global market for forged and stolen artworks and antiquities is spreading to new and broader markets in Asia and Oceania, with countries such as Australia seen as vulnerable and underpoliced²⁸. Despite the reputation of Oceania for having a small or even non-existent illicit art and antiquities import market, there are networks emerging which threaten to broaden the reach of international trafficking networks into New Zealand and Australia. Because national art markets of any scale, legitimate or otherwise, inevitably intertwine with wider international markets, also in Australia and New Zealand the legitimate art market is co-existing with international markets for illegal art.

In recent years there emerges in fact a development of the illicit trafficking of cultural objects from looted archaeological and cultural heritage sites in Europe towards China and Oceania’s art markets through various smuggling networks and intermediaries. Cases of antiquities trafficking from Europe to distant international art markets are documented by recent news stories such as the 2012 case of break-ins at Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum and Durham’s Oriental Museum, where an organized gang stole a valuable cash of items such as rhino horns, jade objects and figurines. Antiquities looting and trafficking expert Dr Donna Yates explained that these thefts were a case where the objects had a very clear and targeted resale market in China²⁹.

If worldwide the largest parts of stolen works of art usually consist of thefts from galleries, private collections, museums and churches, newspaper and police reports suggest that in Australia most thefts do not involve public museums, but are connected with commercial galleries and private collectors³⁰. The lack of data about art crime, in Australia like everywhere in the world, is due to a wide variety of reasons. Notable are public museums being reluctant to call attention either to the value or the vulnerability of their holdings, private collectors not wanting to alert professional thieves to the fact that their houses hold works of great worth, or in some cases the persons involved may have obtained these and other works through questionable or illegal practices which they want to conceal³¹. The largest reason for the lack of data however is probably due to the fact that there is no agreed method or regulations surrounding the cataloguing of cultural artefacts.

Furthermore, according to an Italian research paper conducted by De Joannon in 2004, if the United States is the most recurring destinations for looted and smuggled antiquities from Italy (and estimated more than 40% of the stolen artefacts), in the ranking of traffickers, they were followed by the Japanese and Australian markets³².

The new trade flows of cultural heritage are the answer to a demand for illicit cultural objects in Asia and Oceania following economic growth, and the accessibility of artifacts following the instability created by modern war. Looting and trafficking have criminal effects on this cultural consumption because when exists an art supply and demand relationship, transnational criminal markets work. Sometimes emerges organized networks of relations which put in contact, from one end to the other in the world, in a criminal market, thieves, smugglers, facilitators, sellers and buyers of illicit antiquities. Among these figures, antiquities dealers have a central role providing a source of demand for cultural objects which often have little or no provenance³³. They trade in cultural objects interesting to a very select group of private collectors and wealthy public museums.

Case studies

In 2006 Italian police concluded the operation “Archeoweb” aimed at countering the illicit commercialization, mainly through e-Bay, of archaeological finds of Sicilian origin. The operation leds to dozens of searches, 25 denunciations and the seizure of 8853 archaeological finds. Investigations have confirmed a large network of transactions made abroad, finding contacts with countries such as, inter alia, Australia³⁴.

Also a recent Italian article suggested that new black art market buyers are in New Zealand, Australia, Japan and the Middle East. In 2012 the Italian police arrested a collector and denounced another for illegal archaeological excavation and illicit detention of ancient weapons. Police found in their home over 200 archaeological finds, including numismatics and ten ancient volumes, for a commercial value of over one million euros on the black market. The looted areas from which these pieces came from were likely in the province of Rome. As the Superintendent of the Archaeological Heritage of Latium said, the new buyers interested in these works of art were Japanese, New Zealanders, Australians and Arabs³⁵.

A police investigation report of 2014 identified illegal trafficking routes to and from Italy and outbound flows were especially towards Australia, Germany, Switzerland, USA, France, United Kingdom, Japan and Portugal, where particularly flourishing markets have stabilized interest in cultural property and greater financial availability of potential buyers³⁶.

In 2015, at the end of a complex investigation and international court case that highlighted international Basel-based goods traffic, in Switzerland, 5,361 archaeological finds worth about 50,000,000 euros were finally recovered and returned to the Italian state. The property dates back to a vast period of time, between the 8^th century B.C. and 3^rd century A.D. It is estimated that all of the cultural objects came from clandestine excavations carried out in different regions of Italy. This immense cultural heritage made up of antiquities of utmost rarity was placed in five warehouses in Basel and belonged to Gianfranco Becchina, a well-known art dealer in Castelvetrano, Sicily. He was the occult director of international illicit trafficking that involved a chain of looters, restorers, art experts and unsuspecting collectors, to major international museum institutions. The stolen goods were restored in Switzerland and then resold abroad. A markets for these works were once again seen to be the United States, Australia, Japan, England³⁷.

Conclusions

The international market for illicit art and antiquities is not the small-scale, elitist practice many assume; rather it is one of the most lucrative and widespread criminal markets in the world. In this complicated web there are professional and amateur looters and thieves; smugglers who move the objects regardless of borders; middle-men who “clean” the objects for resale in both the illicit and legitimate market, and finally, the proprietors who buy and sell the objects on the wider market. Traditionally, this complicated network operates within the context of “source” and “market” nations, with source nations often being those countries that are economically poor, but have an abundance of valuable cultural objects. Market nations are often characterized as wealthy countries in which the demand for cultural artefacts far exceeds the supply. However, the definitions of “source” and “market” nations are evolving from traditional models to include wider networks, expanding destinations for illicit art and antiquities and even the growth of illicit markets in countries that are generally viewed as exempt from these smuggling networks.

Asia, and more specifically Oceania, are rarely considered market destinations for stolen art and antiquities. In the case study of Australia, we can observe that this perception is largely due to the lack of penetration of international art into the market, and the highly concentrated nature of the Australian art and antiquity market. However, modern traffickers are increasingly looking to take advantage of these isolated, under-policed and in some ways naïve markets to sell illicit goods not only through the “black” market but also to legitimate institutions, such as museums, who can be tricked or persuaded to fill the gaps in their collections with illicit art and antiquities.

It is a necessity for the international market to preserve cultural heritage not only from deterioration, but also from the darker threats of destruction, subtraction and the illegal export and importation of cultural assets which, at present, constitute the main cause of the dispersal of global cultural heritage. Illegal trafficking of art and antiquities is not a victimless or isolated crime. The international trafficking of illicit objects must be confronted at all points of the network, and dedicated efforts must be made by legitimate institutions to defend and safeguard global cultural heritage.

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Notes

2Ortiz G., The George Ortiz Collection. In Pursuit of the Absolute: Art of the Ancient World, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1994.

3 Yates, D. The Global Traffic in Looted Cultural Objects, USA, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology, Dec. 2016, p. 1.

4 Ibid.

5 Amineddoleh L., How western art collectors are helping to fund Isis. The Guardian, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/26/western-art-funding-terrorism-isis-middle-east

6 Yates D., The Global Traffic in Looted Cultural Objects,USA, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology, Dec. 2016, p. 2.

7 https://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Works-of-art/Works-of-art

8 Mackenzie S., The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Market: Reducing opportunities for organised crime in the international antiquities market, in Manacorda S. and Chappell D. (eds.), Crime in the Art and Antiquities World: Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, Springer Science, 2011, p. 74.

9 Di Nicola A., Savona E., Tendenze internazionali di traffico di opere d’arte e politiche di contrasto, University of Trento, School of Law, Working papers, Giugno 1998, n. 25, p. 10.

10 Melillo G., in Manacroda S., Crime in the art and antiquities world: illegal trafficking in cultural property, Selected papers and contributions from the International Conference on “Organised crime in art and antiquities”, Courmayeur Mont Blanc, Italy12-14 December 2008, ISPAC, 2009, p. 68 and 74.

11 Di Nicola A., Savona E., Tendenze internazionali di traffico di opere d’arte e politiche di contrasto, University of Trento, School of Law, Working papers, Giugno 1998, n. 25, pp. 6-7.

12 Mackenzie S., The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Market: Reducing opportunities for organised crime in the international antiquities market, in Manacorda S. and Chappell D. (eds.), Crime in the Art and Antiquities World: Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, Springer Science, 2011, p. 76.

13 Charney N., Art Crime: Terrorists, Tomb Raiders, Forgers and Thieves, ARCA, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, p. 256.

14 Di Nicola A., Savona E., Tendenze internazionali di traffico di opere d’arte e politiche di contrasto, University of Trento, School of Law, Working papers, Giugno 1998, n. 25, p. 6.

15 Ibid, p. 5.

16 Mackenzie S., The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Market: Reducing opportunities for organised crime in the international antiquities market, in Manacorda S. and Chappell D. (eds.), Crime in the Art and Antiquities World: Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, Springer Science, 2011, p. 77.

17 Mueller, T., How Tomb Raiders Are Stealing Our History, National Geographic, June 2016, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/06/looting-ancient-blood-antiquities/

18 Charney N., Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World, ABC-Clio, 2009, p. 109.

19 Mueller, T., How Tomb Raiders Are Stealing Our History, National Geographic, June 2016.

20 Mackenzie S., The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Market: Reducing opportunities for organised crime in the international antiquities market, in Manacorda S. and Chappell D. (eds.), Crime in the Art and Antiquities World: Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, Springer Science, 2011, pp. 6-7.

21 Crennan S. M., Review: Asian Art Provenance Project, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2015, https://nga.gov.au/AboutUs/press/pdf/NGAIndependentReview.pdf

22 Mackenzie S., Green P., Introduction to Criminology and Archaeology: Studies in Looted Antiquities, Oxford: Hart, 2009, p. 1.

23 Ibid, p. 1 and 2.

24 Polk K., The antiquities trade viewed as a criminal market, Hong Kong Lawyer, September: 82–92, 2000.

25 Di Nicola A., Savona E., Tendenze internazionali di traffico di opere d’arte e politiche di contrasto, University of Trento, School of Law, Working papers, Giugno 1998, n. 25, p. 3.

26 Aarons L., Chappell D., Polk K., Art Crime in Australia: A Market Analysis, Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, 1998, p. 3.

27 Ibid.

28 Williams C., Global market for forged and stolen artworks is thriving and underpoliced. Sydney Morning Herald, September 21, 2017, http://www.smh.com.au/comment/global-market-for-forged-and-stolen-artworks-is-thriving-and-underpoliced-20170921-gylyc0.html

29 Elgot J., Gang may have stolen antiquities for Chinese market, says expert, The Guardian, 1 March 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/01/gang-antiquities-chinese-market-fitzwilliam-oriental-museum

30 Aarons L., Chappell D., Polk K., Art Crime in Australia: A Market Analysis, Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, Gold Coast, Queensland, 10 July 1998, p. 5.

31 Ibid.

32 De Joannon D., Traffici d’autore. Una Cupola per i Beni Culturali, Centonove 24/9/2004.

33 Mackenzie S., Illicit deals in cultural objects as crimes of the powerful, Crime Law Social Change, 2011, p. 133-138.

34 http://www.regione.sicilia.it/beniculturali/dirbenicult/info/carabinieritutelacultura06.html

35 http://www.beniculturali.it/mibac/export/MiBAC/sito-MiBAC/Contenuti/MibacUnif/Comunicati/visualizza_asset.html_174172211.html

36 Comando Carabinieri, Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, report sull’attività operativa 2014.

37 http://www.repubblica.it/cultura/2015/01/21/news/reperti_archeologici-105443369/#gallery-slider=105440524

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Bibliography

Amineddoleh L., How western art collectors are helping to fund Isis. The Guardian, 2016.

Aarons L., Chappell D., Polk K., Art Crime in Australia: A Market Analysis, Annual Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, 1998.

Comando Carabinieri, Tutela Patrimonio Culturale, report sull’attività operativa 2014.

Charney N., Art Crime: Terrorists, Tomb Raiders, Forgers and Thieves, ARCA, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Charney N., Art and Crime: Exploring the Dark Side of the Art World, ABC-Clio, 2009.

Crennan S. M., Review: Asian Art Provenance Project, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2015.

De Joannon D., Traffici d’autore. Una Cupola per i Beni Culturali, Centonove 24/9/2004.

Di Nicola A., Savona E., Tendenze internazionali di traffico di opere d’arte e politiche di contrasto, University of Trento, School of Law, Working papers, Giugno 1998, n. 25.

Elgot J., Gang may have stolen antiquities for Chinese market, says expert, The Guardian, 1 March 2016.

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Mackenzie S., Green P., Introduction to Criminology and Archaeology: Studies in Looted Antiquities, Oxford: Hart, 2009.

Mackenzie S., The Market as Criminal and Criminals in the Market: Reducing opportunities for organised crime in the international antiquities market, in Manacorda S. and Chappell D. (eds.), Crime in the Art and Antiquities World: Illegal Trafficking in Cultural Property, Springer Science, 2011.

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Yates, D. The Global Traffic in Looted Cultural Objects, USA, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology, Dec. 2016.

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Autors

Luca Manfredi is a graduate of Political Science at the University of Turin and a Masters of Cultural Heritage Management from the University of Rome. Currently he is working as an official at the Municipality of Turin, Italy.

Bridget Murray has an undergraduate degree in Archaeology and Arts and a postgraduate degree in Museum Education and Heritage Interpretation from the Australian National University. Currently she works as a Consultant in the agricultural and business development field in Canberra, Australia.