The Social Organisation of the Illicit Trafficking in Antiquities: The Cases of Bulgaria and Italy

Illicit trafficking in antiquities is a transnational market that shows high level of complexity due to the diversification in the actors involved, the objects smuggled and the vast geographical areas targeted. The networked organised crime type has been utilised to describe the transnational nature of the illicit antiquities trafficking, however it eludes the precise characterisation of the mechanisms of interaction between the actors. The thesis aims at examining the dynamics of the organisation of the actors involved in the illicit trafficking at issue in Bulgaria and Italy. To achieve this goal, a model of script analysis was developed to classify the activities that shape this market, their criminal or lawful nature, their interaction, their weight and significance within the whole illicit antiquities trafficking, and the complexity, sophistication and professionalisation of the persons and groups active in this illicit trafficking. Data was collected by means of semi-structured interviews with law enforcement officials, archaeologists and prosecutors, and open data research. The thesis is divided in five parts. While part one introduces the topic, part two applies the social organisation of deviants’ framework to the illicit antiquities trafficking. Part three presents the research design and develops the script used to analyse the case studies described in part four: Bulgaria and Italy. They are sources of antiquities and serve as a bridge to several illegal goods that are smuggled into western European markets, including illicit antiquities. Part five concludes with a comparative discussion of the findings. This study highlights the possibilities of script analysis as research method to investigate understudied transnational crimes. It grounds what is currently known about the transnational illicit antiquities trafficking to the reality, by providing an accurate description of the ways people interact and shape the structure of the crossborder movement of antiquities in Bulgaria and Italy.