Cooperation with INTERPOL

INTERPOL brings its worldwide police network, its secure channels, its database of stolen works of art and its experience of coordinated operations. OIMAP brings its knowledge of the market, its experts, its BIOP database and relations with operators, which the police find hard to reach.

This complementarity is the key: an INTERPOL officer can rely on an OIMAP expert to authenticate a seized object; a market operator can alert the police through the BIOP unit.

Four forms combine. Data exchange synchronises the records of the two databases. Joint operations bring together several countries to target a network or a type of trafficking. Training brings together police officers, customs officers and experts. Shared analyses produce joint reports on trends.

Each form rests on written procedures: exchange formats, confidentiality rules, decision channels. A joint steering committee meets twice a year.

The 2014 agreement was supplemented in 2019 by a protocol on digital matters and in 2023 by an amendment on training. It is evaluated every three years by the two organisations. The principles remain constant: respect for each party's competences, confidentiality, reciprocity.

It gives OIMAP no police powers; it is not an investigative service. Its role is to provide information, expertise and a working framework to the investigators who conduct the operations.

Traffickers operate on a worldwide scale; a purely national response is doomed to fail. Cooperation between a worldwide police organisation and an art market organisation makes it possible to attack trafficking from every angle.

It is also a model for other sectors: it shows that a simple agreement, based on trust, can produce concrete results without upsetting each party's competences.