Abstract
Looting-to-order or theft-to-order of cultural assets has been widely dismissed as a myth. To test that, an open-source analysis of cases and testimony from law enforcement agents, perpetrators of cultural property crime and cultural heritage professionals was conducted. Web searches were conducted for reports that addressed looting, stealing or theft of cultural property on commission or to order; for material that discussed looters, robbers or thieves who had been contracted, employed, hired or paid to extract antiquities; and for academic publications that discussed “looting to order”, “theft to order” or any commodity “stolen to order”. Source-end employment/contracting that did not demonstrate a direct connection to market-end purchase and other cases that might have constituted “stealing to offer” were excluded, as were implicit and complicit orders that did not establish a contractual relationship. The analysis found historic and global evidence of commissioned theft of cultural property. It also found evidence that theft-to-order was a significant problem in some places and had served as a structure for conflict antiquities trading in Argentina, Cambodia and Syria. Since it is an exceptionally challenging form of an already difficult-to-police crime, the evidence of theft-to-order reinforces demands for increased market regulation through export and import licensing.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Dr No myth Popular interest in criminal masterminds and obsessive art connoisseurs has been traced back to “the Dr No myth” that was created in 1962, when a recently stolen masterpiece was depicted in the supervillain’s lair
The analysis found historic and global evidence of commissioned theft of cultural property
It found evidence that theft-to-order was a significant problem in some places and had served as a structure for conflict antiquities trading in Argentina, Cambodia and Syria
Summary
The Dr No myth Popular interest in criminal masterminds and obsessive art connoisseurs has been traced back to “the Dr No myth” that was created in 1962, when a recently stolen masterpiece was depicted in the supervillain’s lair Since Dr No, ingenious art and antiquities heists have featured in blockbusters, B movies, TV series, toy sets, literature, comics and cartoons—Topkapi (1964), the Man from U.N.C.L.E. Contested questions remain about alternative trade structures, such as theft-to-order. They have significant contemporary relevance due to claims of supply of conflict antiquities—illicit antiquities that finance armed groups and repressive regimes—from Syria and Iraq through “looting to order” (Farmer, 2015)
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