On ‘Organized Crime’ in the illicit antiquities trade: moving beyond the definitional debate

Abstract

The extent to which ‘organized crime’ is involved in illicit antiquities trafficking is unknown and frequently debated. This paper explores the significance and scale of the illicit antiquities trade as a unique transnational criminal phenomenon that is often said to be perpetrated by and exhibit traits of so-called ‘organized crime.’ The definitional debate behind the term ‘organized crime’ is considered as a potential problem impeding our understanding of its existence or extent in illicit antiquities trafficking, and a basic progression-based model is then suggested as a new tool to move beyond the definitional debate for future research that may help to elucidate the actors, processes and criminal dynamics taking place within the illicit antiquities trade from source to market. The paper concludes that researchers should focus not on the question of whether organized criminals- particularly in a traditionally conceived, mafia-type stereotypical sense- are involved in the illicit antiquities trade, but instead on the structure and progression of antiquities trafficking itself that embody both organized and criminal dynamics.

Field Archaeologists as Eyewitnesses to Site Looting

“…From a criminological perspective, this dichotomy of sorts has been largely neglected, with the bulk of scholarly treatment of unprovenanced antiquities focusing on the "transit" and "demand" points. For example, antiquities smuggling has been studied in how it overlaps with organized crime, other forms of trafficking, and transnational criminal networks (Mackenzie and Davis 2014;Dietzler 2013;Bowman Proulx 2010;Tijhuis 2006) its links to the funding of insurgencies (Smith-Meyer 2017; De la Torre 2006); the proliferation of fakes and forgeries (Halperin 2017;Kantchev 2017); and comparison of dealers and collectors to white collar criminals (Mackenzie 2005). Within these contexts, the criminality of persons involved is straightforward and uncontested.…”

Archaeology and Contemporary Warfare

“…The antiquities trade is a huge industry, which has been claimed to reach multiple billions of dollars per year (Dietzler 2013; see also Brodie et al 2000), and it continues to grow despite outspoken condemnation and legal attempts to regulate it. The limited scope of legal regulations is, at least in part, a result of powerful collectors' lobbies that have opposed attempts to tighten restrictions on imports of illicitly acquired artifacts (Renfrew 2000, Brodie & Renfrew 2005, Brodie 2008, Gibson 2008, Proulx 2013, Hardy 2015.…”

National Security vs Criminal law. Perspectives, Doubts and Concerns on the Criminalisation of Organised Crime in England and Wales

“…Problems with access to data and measurements of the threats and their costs to society persist. While crimes like drug trafficking or human trafficking have acquired an independent status in research, autonomous from the 'organised crime' rhetoric (Weitzer, 2014), research on criminal networks across the UK has looked at specific places like Liverpool (Lavorgna et al, 2013) or London (Hobbs, 2013) or other hotspots across the country (Edwards and Jeffray, 2014) or at specific crimes, such as money laundering (Leong, 2007) trafficking in artistic objects (Mackenzie, 2011;Dietzler, 2013), counterfeit pharmaceuticals (Lavorgna, 2014a), illegal tobacco (Edwards and Jeffray, 2014), national child trafficking (Brayley et al, 2011) and even counterfeit luxury fashion (Wall and Large, 2010).…”