How organised is the trafficking of cultural goods? Spain as case study

In recent years, the characterisation of the trafficking of cultural property as a form of organised crime has gained prominence in literature and EU and Member State policies on the protection of cultural heritage. Trafficking in cultural goods (TCG) is one of the EU’s priorities in its efforts to combat serious organised crime. However, little research has been conducted into identifying and quantifying case law related to this phenomenon. To increase empirical knowledge in this area, this paper presents the results of a quantitative study of all TCG court cases delivered by Spanish provincial and Supreme Courts between 2014 and 2024 (n = 35). We used the anonymised open court data that is available on the Judicial Documentation Centre database. The research aimed to determine how many trafficking cases had been tried in court, the demographic characteristics of offenders, the types of heritage crime involved and the role of criminal organisations and intermediaries in the illicit market. We found that only 25% of cases involved criminal organisations. The results confirm previous findings regarding the (relatively) disorganised nature of the illicit market in cultural goods, which is dominated by mainly locally based individuals and small groups. This work therefore highlights the need to address the prosecution of TCG holistically, given that we could not find an inherent relation between organised crime and TCG in practice. Our findings partially challenge the assertions of EU bodies and some of the specialised literature that emphatically characterise cultural property crime as a serious organised cross-border crime.