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

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

Beni culturali e sistema penale

Il volume comprende una serie di studi sui reati contro il patrimonio culturale e le relative tecniche di prevenzione e repressione. Si offre così al lettore un’agile ma completa panoramica delle questioni più attuali e rilevanti, a livello sia interno sia internazionale, in tema di tutela del patrimonio culturale da forme di aggressione (come il saccheggio di siti archeologici, il traffico di beni culturali, gli atti di vandalismo o le frodi nel mercato dell’arte) che negli ultimi anni attirano sempre più l’attenzione dei vari legislatori nazionali (a cominciare da quello italiano) e delle Nazioni Unite. La disamina degli illeciti è condotta seguendo la più avanzata impostazione interdisciplinare, che integra strettamente la prospettiva del diritto penale (sia vigente sia nelle sue linee di riforma) con l’analisi criminologica del fenomeno e con i profili della cooperazione internazionale, tanto nelle attività investigative e giudiziarie, quanto rispetto alle complesse questioni legate alla restituzione e al rimpatrio dei beni culturali contesi.This book is a collection of essays dealing with the topic of cultural heritage protection against offences which may impinge upon it. The problem is analyzed through a brief but complete overview of the most compelling and up-to-date questions related, at both national and international level, to the prevention and fight against crimes involving cultural property (such as looting of archaeological sites, illicit trafficking in cultural objects, episodes of vandalism, or frauds in the art market), which, of late, are an object of ever growing interest for national legislators (particularly for Italian lawmakers), as well as for international agencies such as UNESCO and UNODC. The issue is addressed according to an advanced inter-disciplinary approach, encompassing the criminal law perspective (attentive to possible reforms and new criminal policy strategies), together with a criminological evaluation of the phenomenon, a specific attention to the ways of enforcing more effective international police and judicial cooperation, as well as an overview of the main questions related to the return and restitution of disputed cultural objects