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The Looting of cultural and historical items is an ongoing issue that dates back hundreds and hundreds of years ago. The looting of these goods comes in many forms ranging from museum heists to occurring during war. This act becomes a serious issue as it is able to influence an increase in organized crime, illicit trades, money laundering, and ultimately it is detrimental to historical records and a catalyst for political and cultural instability.

Despite current legislation throughout every nation and international relations, absolute prevention of this act is impossible as there are limits as to how far the law can be efficiently enforced.

Many crime organizations utilize the profitable illicit market of acquiring, selling, transporting, etc. the historical/cultural goods as a good source of profit for their underground business(s). As a result, two issues/causes of the looting of these goods arise as a butterfly effect of crime organizations' operations:

In an economy, a market is influenced by supply and demand as these two factors are the driving forces for a profitable market.^[1] Where there is an increase in potential buyers, they will be followed by potential sellers. In this instance, the buyers within the illicit market typically consist of private collectors, individuals that are not associated with a public/government institution. As there are no strict provisions on potential buyers of the looted items, sellers will continue to take advantage of the profitable market in order to make massive profits. As a result, there will be no decrease in the number of looted items being sold illegally in the market. As the location of these goods are not able to be monitored by the government and research institutions, these historically and culturally valuable items end up being lost for a very long time as they jump from owner to owner and through different markets before they are found again.

A method that crime organizations typically use to launder money is through a legal market/transaction. A rather well-known method is through the art market. Although these transactions are typically done inconspicuously under the legal market, money laundering continues to be an underlying factor in encouraging crime for profit. Detrimentally, money laundering is not only an issue in regards to looting and crime but also hurtful towards the economy.^[2]

The forging of fake antiques and art pieces is a way that looters and people who are looking for a way to make illegal profit use to do just that. Whenever fakes are ended up housed at museums either by being replaced with a fake, or it was a fake item when acquired, it has a negative impact as many resources ended up being wasted on a fake item. At times, these fakes are not distinguished as being fake until long after the incident of when it was acquired.^[3]

In the past, during war and other more controversial disputes, soldiers would at times take home trophies of war. These "trophies" would range from personal items that belonged to the people who lived in the area of which the combat occurred, to taking items or even parts of the people with whom they had fought. One notable occurrence of this was during World War II when US soldiers would take parts of the bodies of the soldiers they had fought and send home these "trophies". Consequently, when the Japanese public and both U.S. and Japanese officials found out, they were not thrilled to learn that that was occurring on the battlefield.^[4] Although there was an attempt by the U.S. to halt these acts from occurring, it was not effective and failed to stop soldiers from continuing their looting and sending these items home.^[4]

As the U.S. and Japanese were fighting for different sides during this conflict, these acts of looting did not lessen any political tension and simply created further instability.

As WWII was such a grand conflict that occurred throughout many countries and across nations, there were also many instances where major lootings occurred. It had ranged from small-scale lootings to larger-scale lootings, such as from the image on the right.

The image showcases the findings of many valuable paintings from museums being hidden away after being looted by German forces.

This looting was a well-known case that occurred in Boston, Massachusetts. Approximately $500 million worth of art was stolen from the museum, with a total of 13 pieces being taken.^[5] This case remains unsolved, and the artworks are yet to be recovered.

The National Park Service (NPS) is a U.S. federal agency that works to preserve our national parks and cultural and historical lands.

Passed by the NPS, the Curation of Federally Owned and Administered Archaeological Collections (36 CFR 79) existed to create an outline of how the historical items were to be dealt with among public and private collections.^[6] However, it lacked a process, a guideline to help regulate the processing of registering the ownership of these historical items.^[6] Ultimately, the enforcement of this act was noted to be inefficient and ineffective as the power to enforce this law was not strong enough to bring effective results.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was created following the WWII conflict to initially help resolve and aid in the rebuilding, restoration of cultural lands, and any related areas across the countries that were affected by the conflict. Over time, this organization continues to specialize in helping to resolve international issues regarding crimes such as illicit markets, illegal trades of looted items, aid in conflicts regarding any damages done to culturally and/or historically valued property, and more that occur across borders and between nations.^[7]

The U.S. has notably been a part of UNESCO during its establishment, but over time has left, rejoined, and left the organization again due to conflicts of goals/interests.^[8]

Here are some suggestions that can become an optimal/effective solution:

• Set a required qualification to be eligible(or ineligible) for private/individual ownership of these items
• Use the 36 CFR 79 as a guideline to create a solid, regulated, protocol process to determine rightful ownership of any to-be-registered historical and/or cultural item(s) to limit ownership of illegally acquired items
• Strict/Effective enforcement with consequences if failure to comply with the rules in order to have results