“we have art so we may not die from the truth” – Freidrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
The Nazis seized innumerable works of arts from interned Jews during the Holocaust and Second World War. Before that, the international art market was saturated with treasures relieved from the Imperial oligarchs during the Bolshevik revolution. Going back further, a quick Wikipedia search for “Sack of Rome” will yield no fewer than six possible results. Clearly, the practice of looting artworks during time of war is not a new one. What is new is the ways in which our increasingly interconnected world has facilitated greater accessibility to buyers and sellers of these looted goods. There has always been a market for stolen cultural property, but thanks to the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and its need for diversified revenue streams, this market has never been easier to buy into. This article will explore the structure of ISIS’s antiquities trade, and propose responses to how best disrupt it.
The Islamic States’ (ISIS) practice of trading illegally excavated artifacts from territory in Iraq and Syria should be a policy priority to all states and security actors — not least of all, Canada. We are all threatened by ISIS’s brand of international terrorism which this illicit trade directly funds, and we should be equally outraged by the ongoing cultural genocide and deliberate destruction of artifacts that this trade has indirectly incentivized. The items that ISIS currently uses as a means to its barbaric ends are some of the most ancient and invaluable artifacts that exist, and manipulating them to finance violence and bloodshed is an affront to the shared cultural heritage these objects of beauty represent. Therefore, combatting this trade is a moral and practical cause.
The twin phenomenon of ISIS destruction and trade of antiquities are separate but linked, as both pose threats to the integrity and maintenance of the culturally and financially valuable artifacts found within ISIS territory in Iraq and Syria. This trade, that is the smuggling and sale of illicit antiquities by ISIS removes and robs the Iraqi and Syrian societies of their rightful cultural heritage, providing a mechanism to finance the ISIS’s terrorist activities.
Until recently, the majority of ISIS’s financial resources stemmed from the sale of oil from held territories in Syria and Iraq—becoming the richest global terrorist group by seizing some of the most valuable oil fields in the world.[1] Despite their inability to operate these refineries at full efficiency, ISIS was estimated to be producing 48,000 barrels of oil a day in 2014, acquiring hundreds of millions of dollars by selling at a discount and transporting oil through sophisticated smuggling networks leftover from the Baathist regime.[2] Concerted efforts by the international community to disrupt this oil trade through aerial strikes and sanctions regimes has diminished ISIS’s ability to rely on their oil revenues. They have since shifted towards expanding other sources of revenue, including their existing antiquities trade. This recent success in combatting ISIS activities through oil disruptions should not be met with a victor’s complacency in the campaign against ISIS; instead, a strategy for addressing ISIS’s adaptation, which will contribute to the overall degradation and destruction of the organization, is needed—and fast.
The clandestine nature of this trade make its monetary value difficult to evaluate. United States customs reported a 145% increase in imported Syrian cultural property and a 65% increase in imported Iraqi cultural property since 2011. These imports are not necessarily (and certainly not entirely) derived from ISIS looting, but the terrorist organization has developed a system that can very easily disguise the origins of the materials it loots. The inaccessibility of the region means that the extent of looting and destruction are unknown, but available satellite imaging paint a discouraging picture.
Photos from the Museum of Palmyra similarly demonstrate ISIS’s wanton destruction and looting.[3]
There are about 12,000 years of archeological history buried in ISIS-held Syria and Iraq.[4] To most, these are remarkable sites of significant cultural importance, but to ISIS they represent a vast natural resource ripe for excavation, extraction and auction. ISIS leadership has engaged in a deliberate and demonstrable strategy of identifying areas containing probable artifacts and dispatching excavation teams and overseers to remove them. A chart found in raids that killed ISIS leader Abu Sayyaf’ in 2014 identified places “that are anticipated to have precious things,” then licensed locals to excavate the sites.[5] This practice of “licensing” locals is how ISIS derives its income from antiquities, and is consistent with its other various levies and taxes in the region. Rather than dispatching valuable resources, such as recruits and vehicles, to participate in excavation, ISIS enables the practice of looting by the populace in exchange for a 20%-50% tax. ISIS has so far derived over 20 million USD in doing so.[6] With the recent disruptions to ISIS’s illicit oil trade and targeting of their cash supplies through aerial strikes and counter-terrorism financing action, ISIS reliance on illegal antiquities represents a stream of growing importance to ISIS’s funding, and thus one of growing importance in combatting the group.
The Antiquities Trade: A Transnational Grey Market
Understanding the global antiquities market, and the licit and illicit items that flow through it, is not a binary task of identifying “black” and “white” market goods. The antiquities market is a transnational grey market where transactions within it exist on a spectrum of legality.[7] “White” market artifacts represent the most legitimate of antiquities, but make up a very small portion of transactions and overall circulation. The majority of absolutely legitimate and fully documented artifacts are excavated using state resources in an effort to preserve cultural heritage, and thus remain in museums, galleries and heritage sights outside the antiquities market for private purchase. “Black” market artifacts make up a similarly minute portion of the transactional market. These goods, which have been recently looted or illegally removed, are often clearly prohibited and thus are not in demand from the typical clientele of the antiquities market, which is generally made-up of individuals of high socio-economic status who are averse to obvious criminal enterprise.
The “grey” market is the realm in which the majority of antiquities exist. This category is made up of artifacts where full documentation is lost or otherwise no longer available—which is the majority given the age and excavation practices of the colonial era up until the early 20th century. Consequently, recently looted artifacts by ISIS may slip into this grey market with relative ease and be traded with impunity in European and North American marketplaces. Finding a way to monitor transactions and enforce compliance in this grey area is key to combatting ISIS. Policy makers must realize that in creating a strategy to counter ISIS’s trade in illicit antiquities, it is necessary to understand incentive structures to properly dis-incentivize and eliminate participation in this market.
Many factors combine to drive supply of illicit antiquities for ISIS to sell. The wartime chaos of the region drastically limits the economic opportunities available to individuals living in ISIS-controlled Syria and Iraq.[8] The wealth and ease of antiquities that are excavated, combined with the prevalence of accessible smuggling networks, enable a low-barrier marketplace for entry of individuals seeking to sell their excavated artifacts.[9]
Preventing Looting: A Demand-Side Response
All of these factors are difficult to address without direct on-the-ground interventions; an undesirable strategy given both the financial and human cost implications for the intervening party, as well as this being a strategy that ISIS wants. Preventative means of post-conflict reconstruction to increase the economic alternatives and diminish the instability of the region will address future prevalence of looting and overall crime in the region. However, the type of institutional reforms needed to achieve this result require a cessation of violence, and could take a long time for implementation.[10] In the opinion of this author, managing the “demand” for antiquities offers the most potential for a successful response.
The first factor that drives demand is the relative ease in which artifacts are transported and sold through sophisticated smuggling networks. These networks insulate individual participants from exposure to prosecution—the individual who loots the good is rarely the individual who smuggles it out of the region, just as the smuggler is rarely the final broker or dealer to the final consumer. Therefore, each participant in the illegal supply chain has plausible deniability for their complacency in this criminal trade.[11]
The second factor is the widespread ignorance of the purchasing clientele. The overall ambiguity of the antiquities trade and negligent due diligence laws, means there is little incentive for consumers to educate themselves or to scrutinize goods for sale. However, the fact that the majority of the demand for these goods is in Western Europe and North America makes it an opportune policy space for pressure and response. The demand factors exist in a realm with rule of law, vast and diverse law enforcement institutions, and a malleable and responsive policymaking system. Increasing the prohibitive laws for transactions and ownership of IS-linked antiquities would drastically disrupt their demand. Current legal frameworks are inadequate and weakly enforced given the constraints of law enforcement—for instance, contemporary laws in Europe only prohibit the sale of these goods, while ownership of an illegal antiquity is largely unregulated.[12] Interpol, Homeland Security and most national law enforcement agencies maintain a “red list” of the most notable illegal antiquities known to be in circulation and ways of identifying items that might have been similarly illegally derived.[13] Enhancing the due diligence laws required for trade and prohibiting the ownership of illegal antiquities are two legal reforms that could damper demand for these goods, as the enhanced risk of incarceration would discourage potential consumers and sellers.
However, there are barriers to reform. First, disruptions to any free market will undoubtedly be met with push-back by the market participants, as enhanced regulation would also affect ease of legal trade. This is especially true in the antiquities trade where differentiating between legal and illegal goods is especially difficult, and dealers would justifiably be challenged by radical new standards of diligence to a well-established and longstanding marketplace. The degree of success for prohibition would be contingent upon the degree of adherence by dealers, which in turn is contingent on the level of enforcement. Thus, new laws bring us back to the same problems for existing laws—the problem of enforcement.
The second barrier is the issue of ignorance. As discussed, the sophistication of the networks means that buyers, and even sellers, can plausibly deny or be legitimately unaware of the relic’s illegal origins. Therefore there would be a moral hazard to strict liability arrests, as a single illegal sale or purchase could very well be an isolated incident. Enhancing prohibition to a strict liability offense for sale or purchase would disrupt demand, but arresting and prosecuting based on harsh guidelines would be a dangerous precedent for North American and European law enforcement to set and would likely lead to the unjustified incarceration of many legitimate buyers and sellers of antiquities who could rightfully plead ignorance to the illegality of their transactions.[14]
Increasing the abilities of law enforcement agencies to investigate under existing laws is a better route for enhancing prohibition. Antiquities investigations are complex and resource intensive, requiring diligent monitoring to expose patterns—not just isolated incidents—of illicit transactions.[15] It takes time and human capital to examine the shipping manifestos, bills of sale, warehouse inventories and shipments themselves to build a prosecutable case. High profile arrests have proven successful in disrupting the trade, like that of New York City art dealer Subhash Khapoor in 2009, whose arrest resulted in the recovery of $20M worth of stolen works.[16] Such high profile arrests of individuals create a specific and general deterrent for the practice of illegal trading. The incarceration and imprisonment of Khapoor and other trade mavens deters those individuals from continuing to conduct business. Isolating the most high-profile and active illegal traders and prosecuting them through major investigations is the strategy that has proven most effective in combatting the trade of illicit cultural property. Increased coordination and funding to existing cultural property law enforcement divisions across Europe and America will be required, and is imperative in making a concerted effort to disrupt ISIS’s revenue from the antiquities trade.
Breaking the Chains
[17] ISIS networks are highly layered but also highly vulnerable. Once these artifacts have exited Iraq and Syria and are “mixed” with white and grey market goods by brokers, it is very difficult to continue tracking them unless they are sold immediately in public (typically internet) markets, which is atypical compared to the practices of discrete sale and “sitting” on hot items.[18] The best two areas for disruption are the initial entrance to the market (typically in the European Union) and the infrequent—but still vulnerable—incidents of public sales of recently looted goods.
A model for deriving intelligence that can inform the disruption of illegal networks, and disrupt supply, is needed. Identifying individuals who are exposed in the network, such as less savvy sellers attempting to move IS antiquities quickly on online markets, should be vigorously targeted and pressured to provide information on their artifact’s course. This information can in turn be used to arrest and pressure their sources until the network is exposed. [19] This strategy is already used as a counterintelligence and counterinsurgency method for targeting ISIS networks within Syria and Iraq, and is a practical law enforcement tool for disrupting criminal networks in Europe and North America. Using a network’s interconnectivity against itself is a highly effective means of conducting law enforcement and military manhunts. Breaking these supply chains is paramount to stopping trade – a strategy worth pursuing.
Networks can also be disrupted through enhanced border security to protect the outflow of artifacts from Syria and Iraq, thus preventing their inflow to European and North American marketplaces. Securitizing borders against smuggling is not a unique problem in the ISIS antiquities context. European borders are currently feeling the pressure from massive inflows of migrants seeking refuge from the ongoing violence in Iraq and Syria, and border agencies such as Frontex are already overwhelmed. Enhancing Frontex’s and other national immigration departments will be unlikely to improve the necessary checks to disrupt antiquities smuggling without an increase in human capital and funding.[20] This is a difficult proposition in a period of austerity for Europe, but it is necessary if policymakers wish to disrupt ISIS’s revenue streams.
These strategies may not be adequate to diminish ISIS’s finances enough to disrupt their organization. As of right now, antiquities’ represent a moderate, but growing, portion of ISIS’s revenue stream. However, the cultural heritage of the region is an important symbol that unites the citizens of both Syria and Iraq and it’s being destroyed and traded by barbaric occupiers with impunity. If security policymakers wish to combat IS and protect these treasures, rapid action is needed.
