Art and Antiques Unit

The Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit is a branch of the Specialist, Organised & Economic Crime Command within London's Metropolitan Police Service. The unit's purpose is to investigate art theft, illegal trafficking and fraud. The UK art market is the second largest in the world.[1]

Formation and history

The Art and Antiques Unit was established in 1969.[2] It was dissolved and reformed in the mid-1980s, a second time after the 2005 London Bombings and again following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.[3][4]

The unit maintains the London Stolen Arts Database (LSAD), containing details of thousands of items of stolen cultural property.[5] The unit has a strength of six officers – led by a Detective Chief Inspector, with a Detective Inspector, Detective Sergeant and three Detective Constables.[6] In contrast, the Italian Carabinieri Art Squad employs around 300 detectives.[5]

Notable investigations

The unit's work led to the successful prosecution of Jonathan Tokeley-Parry in 1997 for smuggling Egyptian antiquities.[1] In 2007, the forger Shaun Greenhalgh was sentenced to more than four years in prison.[7]

In 2019, artefacts seized by the unit in 2002 were repatriated to Afghanistan.[8]

See also

References
  1. "An Uncertain Future for the Art & Antiques Squad". Illicit Cultural Property. 17 August 2017. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  2. "Information Rights Unit - When the arts and antiques division was set up". Metropolitan Police. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  3. Chesters, Laura (14 December 2017). "Scotland Yard Art and Antiques Unit re-formed". Evening Standard. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  4. Chesters, Laura (11 September 2017). "Met Police says art and antiques crime squad will reopen 'as soon as possible'". Art and Antiques Gazette. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  5. Foley, Thomas (2014). "Foley, T., 2015. Art Loss and Databases: The Quest for a Free Single Unified System". Retrieved 26 July 2020. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  6. "FOI request – Art and Antiques Unit". Retrieved 9 February 2022.
  7. "Bolton fake statue fraudster Shaun Greenhalgh 'regrets' conning museum". BBC News. 19 July 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  8. "A number of artefacts..." Twitter. Metropolitan Police. Retrieved 26 July 2020.


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