Fighting illicit trafficking

Trafficking follows a chain: looting or theft upstream, local intermediaries, carriers, receivers, unscrupulous dealers and, finally, buyers. At each link, provenance is blurred: false certificates, transit countries, successive sales.

Fighting trafficking means acting on each link: securing sites, controlling borders, training officers, making operators accountable and raising buyers' awareness. OIMAP works at each of these levels.

Trafficking in cultural property often overlaps with other offences: money laundering, tax fraud, corruption, financing of criminal organisations. Investigations conducted with INTERPOL and the WCO show that these networks use methods similar to those of other trafficking.

That is why the fight rests on cooperation between services: police, customs, justice, financial intelligence units. OIMAP's procedures are designed to fit with those of these administrations.

The lawful market is not the culprit, but it is the final outlet. It is what traffickers seek to reach in order to turn stolen property into money. Operators who apply due diligence close that door.

OIMAP therefore regards operators as partners: it provides them with the BIOP database, training and alerts, and expects in return that they report suspicious transactions and refuse doubtful provenances.

Trafficking stops at neither a border nor a profession. It feeds on indifference, absence of control, the temptation of a bargain. Responsibility is therefore shared among those who produce, those who transport, those who sell and those who buy.

OIMAP's awareness campaign makes this its central message: a work without clear provenance is a work that may have cost others dearly. Asking the question before buying is already acting.