Introduction

Abstract

‘Heritage crime’ as a term has begun to appear more and more in both academic and policy documents. In England, the non-governmental organization responsible for the management and promotion of the historic environment, English Heritage, has even taken on the issue of heritage crime as a key aspect within its strategy moving forward (English Heritage, 2013, p. 15). More broadly, such globally pertinent issues as the international trafficking of cultural objects, especially those looted from archaeological sites and monuments, have long attracted the attention of academics, heritage managers, lawyers, journalists and participants in the art market alike (see for example Coggins, 1969 for an early archaeological discussion of the issue; Ede, 1998, for a dealer’s perspective, and Silver, 2009, for a journalistic investigation). The challenges connected to the curtailing of the theft and illegal export of cultural material, not only that of an archaeological origin, continue to be an important area of research for many and the conflation of heritage crime in general with illicit trade was suggested in a recent publication produced in partnership between Norwegian and Polish agencies (Ramskjaer et al., 2011). However, other crimes also have a significant impact on cultural heritage, as defined here.