Illicit Antiquities Trafficking in the Balkans: Patterns, Actors, and Policy Issues

The illicit antiquities trafficking has a complex nature, due to the heterogeneity of the actors involved, the objects smuggled, and the many geographical areas targeted. This paper focuses on the illicit trafficking of archaeological artefacts in the Balkan area, a region that channels illegal goods into the European markets, including antiquities. Balkan countries are also source of illicit antiquities on their own. The paper describes the coverage given to the Balkan illicit antiquities trade in three typologies of documents, in the period between 2009 and 2019: peer-reviewed journal articles; media channels, online newspapers, and blogs contents; published reports of organisations dealing with the phenomenon. The paper examines the data and reviews the evidence of the illicit antiquities trafficking at regional level as perceived in media narratives. The characteristics of the illicit antiquities trafficking are grouped around the following domains: the countries recurrently mentioned as active in the market, the objects more likely to be smuggled, and the factors that facilitate or obstruct the illicit antiquities trafficking in the Balkans. The aim of the paper is threefold: first, by relying on open source data, it identifies the patterns and changes thereof of the illicit trafficking in antiquities at regional level in the past decade; second, it identifies the gaps in the knowledge of the illicit trafficking at issue and future research on the topic; third, it singles out the most critical areas of interventions when it comes to counter the illicit trade in antiquities.