Mlada Simper
Theft, forgery, and money laundering – the art market has a surprising dark side. Debate rages on about how prevalent or profitable the underground art market truly is, but the Organized Crime Group of the UK Metropolitan Police and Interpol estimate that the art black market generates at least $6 billion annually.[1] The illegal art market is defined as the sale or use of stolen, forged, or banned artwork for “purposes contrary to law.”[2] Sustained demand by buyers, coupled with the inherent opacity of international art market results in a lucrative environment for illicit activity.[3]
Looted artifacts from archeological sites and ancient cultural monuments comprise a profitable sector of the art black market.[4] Conflicts and civil wars facilitate theft from important archeological sites, such as in Syria and Iraq where “impoverished inhabitants or organized criminal groups” perpetuate “systemic theft of antiquities.”[5] These trafficked antiquities have been linked to funding the ISIS terror group, indicating that these artifacts have far-reaching implications past simple theft.[6] Drug dealers are also involved in the art market, seen in the 2014 U.S. v. Ronald Belciano et al. case, where marijuana drug dealers were convicted for money laundering in connection with accepting “artworks in lieu of cash after being promised that they could sell them back for laundered money once the art dealers had buried the transactions in their books.”[7]
Other looted artifacts fall into the hands of corporations – in the 2017 case of United States of America v. Approximately Four Hundred Fifty Ancient Cuneiform Tablets and Approximately Three Thousand Ancient Clay Bullae, the Oklahoma firm Hobby Lobby “paid $3 million to settle a lawsuit brought on by the U.S. government that stated the retail giant had illegally smuggled several thousand ancient Iraqi artifacts into the U.S. after labeling them ‘ceramic tile samples.’” [8]
Looting is a difficult problem to stop, in part because many archeological sites have not yet been uncovered.[9] For instance, Peru’s government estimates that only a tenth of its 100,000 archeological sites have been unearthed.[10] Unfortunately, looted sites generally only come to attention after the damage has been done, and securing these sites costs money or resources that these areas cannot afford.[11] The low risk of detection allows art thieves to capitalize in other settings as well, like in disorganized museum inventories or private collections.[12] Stolen individual artwork “immediately re-enters the legal art market, since the risk of the original owner identifying it in time to prevent a sale is low.”[13]
Addressing the issues in the illegal art market necessitates a multi-faceted approach. Enforcement agencies already exist (Interpol, Carabinieri Art Squad of Italy, Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Art Crime Team) as do international agreements (the UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property provides guidelines on how to combat art trafficking).[14] In Peru, satellite imagery allows for aerial surveillance of inaccessible archeological sites, potentially offering an option for watchdog groups or government agencies in the fight against looting.[15] Other public awareness campaigns, like the Protege tu legado [Protect Your Legacy] campaign by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Mexico seeks to fight the theft of cultural goods by bringing attention to the illegal art market at the community level.[16]
As the illegal art market intersects at the community, corporate, and global level, fighting against the illegal art trade may seem discouraging. However, with advances in technology and increased awareness, the potential to slow the black market continues to increase.
[1] The Illicit Trafficking of Cultural Issues Shall Be Recognized as a Security Issue, UNESCO (Nov. 23, 2023), https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/illicit-trafficking-cultural-goods-shall-be-recognized-security-issue.
[2] Erin Thompson, Black Market for Art, Grove Art Online (July 31, 2018), https://doi.org/10.1093/oao/9781884446054.013.2000000134.
[3] Blake Konkol, Lifting the Veil: What are the Due Diligence Requirements for the Art Market in the United States?, Ctr. for Art L. (July 26, 2022), https://itsartlaw.org/2022/07/26/lifting-the-veil-what-are-the-due-diligence-requirements-for-the-art-market-in-the-united-states/#post-61172.
[4] Marc-André Renold, The Art Market: A Victim of its Own Success, UNESCO Courier (Oct. 8, 2020), https://courier.unesco.org/en/articles/art-market-victim-its-own-success.
[5] Id.
[6] Id.
[7] Tom Mashburg, The Art of Money Laundering, Fin. & Dev. Mag.: Int’l Monetary Fund (Sept. 2019), https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2019/09/the-art-of-money-laundering-and-washing-illicit-cash-mashberg.
[8] Charlie Pogacar, Hobby Lobby Forced to Forfeit Gilgamesh Tablet, Art & Object (May 20, 2020), https://www.artandobject.com/news/hobby-lobby-president-return-ancient-artifacts.
[9] Mattia Cabitza, Protecting Peru’s Ancient Past, BBC News (Dec. 15, 2011), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-16190824.
[10] Id.
[11] Id.
[12] Thompson, supra note 2.
[13] Id.
[14] UNESCO, supra note 1.
[15] Cabitza, supra note 9.
[16] UNESCO, supra note 1.