Origins of the factoid

It is clear that the primary purpose of this factoid in academic, popular and governmental literature is to assert the gravity of the harms related to the illicit trade. As such, those who use it seek to connect the illicit trade in antiquities with other illicit trades that the public views as harmful (drugs and latterly weapons). This is the case in all instances of the claim's use from its first appearance. The exact form of the third-largest claim, however, has changed both over time and as it has passed through different contexts. Sometimes the claim is applied to ‘art’, sometimes to ‘antiquities’, sometimes to ‘cultural property’, but rarely with any discussion of precise definition or material demarcations. Sometimes the claim refers to the ‘value’ or ‘total value’ of the trade (or the ‘illicit trade’ or the ‘illegal trade’), and sometimes it refers to the trade's ‘dollar amount’, again without qualification as to what these terms mean and how they are bounded. The UNESCO claim that we reproduce in our first paragraph refers to volume, which is something else entirely. The claim is so vague as to be useless. While there are some temporal trends within these variations (see below), for the most part, this factoid remains malleable and can be moulded to fit any applicable situation, with significant variations still seen in contemporary sources.

The earliest recorded instance of the factoid that we located is a note in the Journal of Field Archaeology in 1974:

There is no indication in this text, referring to ‘art’ and ranking the trade as ‘second largest’, from where Riley obtained this information or if it was based on any real evidence. More importantly, the article in which the claim is made does not seem to have been particularly influential, as neither it nor Riley are cited by any later sources that repeat the claim. This does indicate that the claim was being made within US government circles at the time, perhaps as part of wider discussions related to the signing and implementation of the 1970 UNESCO Convention. Later in the 1970s, the claim first appears in the popular press, still referring to ‘art’ and the ‘second largest’. Examples include:

• • Reported art thefts total at least 42,000 a year, ranking second only to narcotics traffic as an international crime activity (U.S. News & World Report 1978).

• • French police dealing with stolen art say it is the biggest international racket after narcotics, netting $33 million a year (Associated Press 1979).

In all instances, the cited sources for the factoid are either vague or absent, a trend that continues to the present. These media pieces are the farthest back we could trace citation chains relating to the factoid.

Starting in the early 1980s, legal researcher James A.R. Nafziger published a series of academic papers that included the claim in various forms, relating to ‘art’ or ‘cultural property’ and still ranking the trade as ‘second largest’. These publications proved to be widely influential within academic and legal scholarship. Nafziger's academic reputation clearly lent credence to the claim, and most subsequent authors accept him as a reliable source without further comment. Nafziger's first use of the factoid is sceptical, but his later works display uncritical acceptance of the factoid:

• • Somewhat melodramatically, the narrator [of an ABC news documentary] expressed the ‘most generally accepted view’ that smuggled art is second in total value only to narcotics (Nafziger Reference Nafziger1983: 372).

• • The total value of stolen or smuggled objects d'art involved in international trafficking, running over $1 billion annually, is second only to narcotics (Nafziger Reference Nafziger1985: 835).

• • Illegal trafficking in stolen cultural property is second in value only to narcotics and generates its own transboundary tensions (Nafziger Reference Nafziger1987: 636).

Through the 1980s and 1990s, the popular press continued to promote the claim. However, unlike in the previous decade, named expert sources were offering the factoid to reporters during interviews. This is likely to be a by-product of the factoid becoming embedded in the academic literature, and a journalistic tendency to push experts to quantify the unquantifiable—the persistent editorial demand to ‘put a number on it’. Examples of the claim attributed to professional sources named in popular press features include:

• • The New York Times (1981) quoting Robert Volpe, detective in the New York City Police Department: “The black market for stolen art and art frauds is enormous, amounting to hundreds of millions, or even billions, of dollars a year, according to Mr. Volpe. ‘It is second only to narcotics traffic in size as a criminal activity,’ he said”.

• • The Globe and Mail (Mittelstaedt Reference Mittelstaedt1987) citing the director of the International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR): “The value of the international traffic in stolen cultural property has reached about $1-billion a year, a volume of illegality that places art theft second only to the global trade in narcotics, said Constance Lowenthal …”.

• • The Guardian (Pugh et al. Reference Pugh1992) citing Patrick Boylan of London's City University that “antiquities are second only to drugs and arms in terms of value in the international catalogue of crime”.

• • The AFP (Agence France-Presse) (Carmichael & Dakhakhny Reference Carmichael and Dakhakhny1993) quoting Caroline Wakeford of the Art Loss Register that: “The worldwide market for all stolen art is estimated at $3 billion annually and growing—which is second only to drug trafficking.”

During this time, academics also cited what purported to be authoritative sources, though without providing data to back up the claim. When legal scholar Norman Palmer (Reference Palmer and Tubb1995: 2) wrote that “of illicit world markets, that in stolen art is said to be second in turnover only to drug-trafficking” he cited “evidence from the Council for British Archaeology” (Reference Palmer and Tubb1995: 29, note 13), though without actually revealing what the evidence was. Patrick Boylan (Reference Boylan and Tubb1995: 95), writing in the same book as Palmer, stated that antiquities were “almost certainly the world's third largest field of international crime—after trafficking in drugs and the illegal arms trade” (emphasis added), citing no supporting evidence. As noted above, Boylan had already been quoted in the Guardian article (Pugh et al. Reference Pugh1992).

Boylan seems to have been the first person to narrow down the third-largest claim to antiquities. This is a significant modification to the claim that is repeated by many subsequent authors and which displays both the malleability of the factoid in different contexts and its lack of factual sourcing. Boylan also seems to be the first to have promoted ‘arms’ to second on the list of illicit trades alongside narcotics, with antiquities ranked third. The exact provenance of the addition of arms is unclear. In some instances of the newly expanded claim, Nafziger is cited as the source even though he only mentioned narcotics (e.g. Kaye Reference Kaye1996). But for whatever reason arms were added to the list, the addition has endured. During this period, a particularly influential piece was published by Lisa Borodkin, which continues to be cited by law students and academics to this day. Borodkin (Reference Borodkin1995) wrote “Measured in dollars, the illegal art trade is larger than any other area of international crime except arms and narcotics trafficking”; however, her source for this assertion is the Guardian article quoted above containing Boylan's unverifiable statement (Pugh Reference Pugh1992).

The factoid established: trusted (false) sources

By the later 1990s, and extending to the present, Interpol becomes the most commonly mentioned (but not specifically cited) source of the factoid in the popular press, academic literature and governmental documentation, with quotes switching effortlessly between ‘art’, ‘cultural property’ and ‘antiquities’. Examples include:

• • But while museums and auction houses are nearing consensus on how to handle World War II disputes, there remain deep disagreements over how to resolve the issue of antiquities looting, which now rivals trafficking in drugs and illegal arms, according to INTERPOL (Chaddock Reference Chaddock1998).

• • Interpol, the international police agency, says the global market in looted and stolen antiquities ranges from $4 billion to $5 billion a year. That puts the smuggling of antiquities on a par with illegal arms, and second only to international traffic in narcotics (Toner Reference Toner1999).

• • [W]hereas, according to Interpol, the black market for works of art is becoming as lucrative as those for drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods (The European Parliament 2017).

While the exact origin of Interpol as the source for this information is unclear, the organisation has a complicated history of involvement with this factoid. As far back as 10 December 2011, which is the earliest version of the site on the Wayback Machine (see https://web.archive.org/web/20111210131420/http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Works-of-art/Frequently-asked-questions), the Interpol website hosted a FAQ section that directly addressed the factoid's problematic nature:

Kate Fitz Gibbon (Reference Fitz Gibbon2005: 179) had already noted the existence of this Interpol disclaimer in 2005, so it dates back at least that far. However, between 24 September and 27 October 2016, a contradictory addition was made to the front page of Interpol's targeted Works of Art website, although the FAQ section remained unchanged:

This contradiction remained on the Interpol website until the whole page was removed and redesigned between February and March of 2019 (see: https://web.archive.org/web/20190329225952/ and https://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Works-of-art/Works-of-art). People associated with the antiquities trade criticised the presence of the factoid on the Interpol site and noted its removal (Macquisten Reference Macquisten2019b). Prior to this, the factoid had appeared within Interpol news briefs and in public statements made by Interpol representatives, for example:

• • “For criminals, the black market in works of art is becoming just as lucrative as for drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods. Ancient artefacts also represent a potential source of great wealth for terrorist groups” said Secretary General Stock [of Interpol] (Interpol 2018a).

• • “With stolen works of art fast becoming as lucrative as drugs, weapons and counterfeit goods trafficking, the crime area is increasingly attractive for organized crime groups” said Corrado Catesi, INTERPOL Works of Art Unit coordinator” (Interpol 2018b).

Interpol representatives have repeated this claim at various times, even though their own source for the factoid does not appear to have been related to any research or statistics and they, themselves, state in their FAQs that such a claim is impossible to make. This appears to be an unfortunate example of the repetition of a factoid dislodging a reputable organisation's own prior scepticism, and Interpol bears some of the blame for the pervasiveness of this claim.

Interpol is not the only law enforcement organisation that is cited as an authority for the factoid; the FBI is another commonly claimed source. There are indications that at least part of the reason for this relates to an article published in 2012 in the FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin. Importantly, the authors of the article are not FBI agents and they do not cite the FBI as their source for the factoid. They state: “Over the last 50 years, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has ranked art crime behind only drugs and arms in terms of highest-grossing criminal trades” (Charney et al. Reference Charney, Denton and Kleberg2012: 1); however, the link they provide is to the website of the DOJ's US National Central Bureau of Interpol. That website makes the claim as far back as at least July 2008 (see https://web.archive.org/web/20080713003948/http://www.justice.gov/usncb/programs/cultural_property_program.php) stating: “The annual dollar value of art and cultural property theft is exceeded only by the trafficking in illicit narcotics and arms.” Again, there is no indication as to where the authors of that website sourced the claim and no indication that it was made as the result of research or crime statistics.

Most recently, UNESCO has also been presented as the source of this factoid, and its promotion of this claim has prompted significant criticism in trade and academic circles. While we can see UNESCO being presented as the factoid's source in earlier written work and policy documentation (e.g. the European Commission's ‘Questions and Answers on the Illegal Import of Cultural Goods Used to Finance Terrorism’ which cites both Interpol and UNESCO; European Commission 2017a), UNESCO's public problems with the factoid mostly started in 2020. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, UNESCO devoted a special issue of The UNESCO Courier to the illicit trade in antiquities (UNESCO 2020). In it, the factoid is repeated twice, both times referring to ‘cultural goods’:

• • In an editorial by Ernesto Ottone Ramírez, Assistant Director-General for Culture, UNESCO: “The illicit flow of cultural goods is now believed to be the third-largest in terms of volume, after drugs and arms” (Ramírez in UNESCO 2020).

• • In a piece by Agnès Bardon: “In spite of the lack of precise figures, it is generally estimated that the illegal trade in cultural goods is the third-largest international criminal activity—after drugs and arms trafficking” (Bardon in UNESCO 2020).

This and other unsupported claims were heavily criticised in the art press (e.g. Noce Reference Noce2020) and beyond. While people associated with the trade felt that that UNESCO was spreading rumours and lies about their business, we believe that UNESCO's significant platform on this issue was being wasted on baseless claims that could have easily been corrected by experienced researchers if UNESCO had consulted them.

To draw a line under this, the ‘third largest’ claim is not based on research by any academic or other business or professional expert, is not drawn from crime statistics or from any relevant organisation or government, and no one has verified it. While its exact source is unclear, it has existed for at least five decades in the service of a narrative that equates harm with monetary value, and severity with more ‘dangerous’ illicit trades.

This claim is dangerous. Please stop making it

While we have certainly been critical of the trade in antiquities, we agree with the trade's hostility towards the various unsubstantiated factoids that are used to describe the antiquities trade, including the ‘third largest’. For researchers and experts in this field, the employment of the factoid evidences at least some degree of uncritical and under-researched work on the part of whoever is making the claim. It means that they have not established the reliability of the information that they are using by evaluating its source, or lack thereof, and they have not engaged with the topic on a deep enough level to realise that ranking illicit trades by financial worth is impossible. The factoid has become a shibboleth, a flag of unreliability that draws closer attention during the peer review of a paper or to other claims made by those who share the factoid. As the claim has been and continues to be repeated by mandated institutions, from UNESCO to Interpol and others, we are left frustrated. If our mandated institutions cannot be trusted to fact check, who can we believe?

Returning to our ‘excavation’ of the appearance of this factoid over the past five decades, it is its appearance in policy development that we find the most disturbing and dangerous. Policy that has its basis in unsound or unsubstantiated evidence is fundamentally flawed. The widely held belief among policymakers that this factoid comes from a trusted source creates the risk that important decisions will be made based on it. While this is more a diffuse than a specific harm, the danger lies in the implementation of anti-illicit trade policy which does not accurately reflect the realities of market focus, directionality and volume. This leaves antiquities poorly protected as it is unlikely to prevent the true manifestations of this form of crime. We know from our own experience that this claim is commonly made in high-level discussions within governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, and we can see it in the resulting outputs, a few of which we discuss below.

In evidence submitted to a British Parliamentary enquiry in 1999, the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) noted that “As the illicit trade is largely clandestine it is not open to systematic quantification and estimates of total value are usually extrapolations from what few official statistics are available” before going on to say that “Interpol suggests that the illicit trade in cultural property is third only in value to drugs and arms” (European Association of Archaeologists 1999; one of the authors (Brodie) advised the EAA on this submission). The EAA cited their source as Maria Kouroupas, who was the long-time director of the US State Department's Cultural Heritage Center and chair of the US Government's Cultural Antiquities Task Force. Kouroupas (Reference Kouroupas1998) wrote “according to Interpol, it now ranks with drugs and arms as one of the three most serious illicit international trading activities, valued at approximately $4.5 billion annually”. In a response to the same enquiry, the Italian Carabinieri stated that “illegal trafficking of cultural goods is second only to the ‘black market’ of illegal drugs and weapons” with the figure attributed to “the results of a survey conducted by a leading British magazine in 1994 or 1995 the profit deriving from the illegal movement of works of art is second only to the profits of drug trafficking” (Carabinieri 1999). The magazine article is not cited, and we wonder if it is the 1992 Guardian article (Pugh et al. Reference Pugh1992).

This factoid has also infiltrated recent EU documents and reports related to the illicit antiquities trade and has seemingly become embedded in the policy discourse related to this issue. For example, a report commissioned by the European Commission to inform policy development states:

A 2017 report prepared by Deloitte and commissioned by the EU Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union to consider customs-related issues regarding antiquities states:

An impact assessment prepared by European Commission staff which accompanied a ‘Proposal for Regulation of the European Parliament of the Council on the import of cultural goods’ states:

We even see this factoid in emerging international agreements and conventions appearing, for example, in the Explanatory Report that accompanies the official text of the Council of Europe Convention on Offences relating to Cultural Property: “After arms and drugs trafficking, according to some estimates, the illicit trade in cultural objects is one of the most profitable forms of transnational organised crime” (Council of Europe 2017).

Considering the statement at the start of this section, attributed to International Association of Dealers in Ancient Art chairperson Vincent Geerling, we agree that the employment of this and other factoids seriously undermines the idea that policy and policing related to the illicit trade in antiquities is being made based on real data (see Brodie et al. Reference Brodie, Kersel, Mackenzie, Sabrine, Smith and Yates2022). Indeed, the prevalence of unsubstantiated claims in this area gives people involved in the trade something to legitimately criticise and, by doing so, opens the door for real data, accurate information and discussion of harms to be dismissed as further ‘bad data’.

This problem was made all too clear in a pair of programmes produced by the BBC World Service's Business Daily. The first, broadcast on 18 September 2018, presented an investigation into the illicit trade in antiquities (BBC 2018). Following a complaint from the Antiquities Dealers Association (ADA) that the programme had exaggerated the scale of the problem, there was follow-up coverage broadcast on 20 February 2019 (BBC 2019). From the outset, speaking for the ADA, Ivan Macquisten attacked the Interpol claim that cultural artefacts were the third-most-trafficked good, even though that claim had not been mentioned in the first programme. Lazare Eloundou Assomo, representing UNESCO, was caught on the back foot facing questions from the presenter about Interpol's ‘zombie statistics’ while struggling to get his own argument across. It was an excellent example of the factoid being used by the ADA in support of aggressive public relations aimed at discrediting UNESCO, with Macquisten stating that UNESCO, Interpol and the European Commission “don't know what they are talking about” (BBC 2019). It is hard to disagree with him (see also Macquisten Reference Macquisten2019a). Yet, as we have described, the following year UNESCO officials were once again quoting what should have been by then a discredited factoid (e.g. Ramirez & Bardon in UNESCO 2020).

The factoid is also a source of friction between the trade and non-trade researchers, which rightfully makes both hesitant to consider working with ‘the other side’ on this issue. Yet this is a burning bridge that many researchers wish was not on fire. Perhaps our agreement that these factoids are false can be a point of trust to build upon.