Polk, Kenneth; Chappell, Duncan --- "Policing and prosecution of heritage crime: revisiting the Cordata - just how organised is the international traffic in cultural heritage?" [2019] ELECD 3001; in Mitsilegas, Valsamis; Hufnagel, Saskia; Moiseienko, Anton (eds), "Research Handbook on Transnational Crime" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 403

Book Title: Research Handbook on Transnational Crime

Editor(s): Mitsilegas, Valsamis; Hufnagel, Saskia; Moiseienko, Anton

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 28

Section Title: Policing and prosecution of heritage crime: revisiting the Cordata – just how organised is the international traffic in cultural heritage?

Author(s): Polk, Kenneth; Chappell, Duncan

Number of pages: 10

Abstract/Description:

Previously the authors, along with others, have attempted to address the problem of the fit of the illicit traffic in antiquities into the patterns of what has been termed ‘organised crime’. In our first approach to this task in 2011 three case studies, drawn respectively from Italy, the United Kingdom and Cambodia, were used to explore the appropriateness of this term being attached to the activities involved. We concluded then that it was an appropriate use for a number of reasons. In this current and fresh analysis of this topic, conducted almost a decade later, we refer in particular to a further case study allegedly involving massive targeted looting and marketing of antiquities from sites in India and elsewhere in the South Asia region. We conclude that while there remains strong evidence that the trade in plundered antiquities continues to match the characteristic descriptions of organised crime, there has been a profound and continuing shift in its focus and concentration from Europe and North America to the Asian region in general, and China and India in particular. Further, the Internet has caused a shift in the nature of the antiquities market from a low-volume, high-value trading model towards more of a high-volume, low-value one.