reportage
ILLEGAL TRAFFICKING OF CULTURAL GOODS Imagine something really precious for you and yours - say, a ring or a painting that has been in your family for generations, a statue from the church you frequent that has been there since the foundation of your town. Imagine it got stolen and resold, maybe online. You wouldn’t like it, right? Wouldn’t you be upset and wish to have it back?
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ow, imagine this happens in the world at a large scale, so large that it accounts for the 3rd largest illegal traffic in the world, after drugs and guns, rivaling with the traffic of people and organs, involving 6 billions of dollars in the last decade. Wouldn’t it be terrible? Well, it actually is true. The illicit trafficking of cultural property is a huge global problem that not many people know about. It is a problem that has a lot to do with the world’s unbalances and other issues: the countries where cultural goods are most looted from are those with a rich history but currently poor or at war - like Central American, African and Asian countries.
