The trade in stolen cultural property occurs in a sector of international business that is rarely open to public scrutiny. Though governments, insurance groups and museum bodies have acknowledged the black market trade and have taken various steps in prevention and restitution, art crime often remains shrouded in a secrecy that is forged both by the illicit market and the victims of the crime. Art theft only appears topical within the public realm when works are discovered to have been taken, either after a premeditated heist, an opportunistic “smash and grab” or, as was the case for the Hermitage, during collection audits. Although there is a prevalence of the clandestine in the business of trafficking stolen cultural property by both the perpetrators, clients and victims of the illicit trade, large thefts from cultural institutions are more often subject to great public scrutiny and media frenzy. Incidents of theft at public museums achieve a high public profile and receive wide international media coverage that is widely accessible on the Internet.
International bodies such as UNESCO and Interpol do attempt to provide general source material on art theft as does international watch lists such as the Art Loss Register or the FBI and Interpol Databases of stolen or looted cultural property. The secondary effect of the illicit trade in art is the business of art protection through insurance or security measures and the business of tracking and returning stolen cultural property. These sit in counterpoint to the lucrative Black Market with a niche supply and demand market for the illegal acquisition and sale of cultural property, with its links to organised crime and the use of stolen art to launder money.
This means that available source material and research on the black market business of trafficking stolen art is limited because of the very illegal nature of the process. Figures and statistics are often estimated and inconclusive because many art crimes remain unreported or confidential in order of avoid publicity that reveals the limitations of existing security that can then lead to further theft, loss of benefactors and raised insurance premiums. There is also the factor that each nation establishes their own laws, protocols and policing priorities for the prevention of art crime and the restitution of stolen cultural property. Although legislation and law enforcement directives can be made using UNESCO’s existing protocols and accords for the protection and repatriation of cultural property as guidelines, this is voluntary and by no means guarantees consistency of legislation. Each of these factors creates a limitation in the academic research of contemporary cultural theft.