NEW! Final DVD of Stolen Works of Art available in June 2009 After several years of providing information about stolen works of art by means of a CD-ROM and since August 2006 through a DVD, INTERPOL will cease the production of the DVD with the June 2009 edition, which will be delivered in July. From August 2009, INTERPOL will create an online access to its stolen art database. As the database is continuously updated, authorized users will always have real-time access to the information recorded in the database. This is part of INTERPOL’s efforts to protect cultural property by making the sale of stolen works of art more difficult. Further details and the modalities of access will be published in advance on this website. Therefore, new orders for the DVD can only be accepted for the remaining June 2009 edition.

Stolen Works of Art CD-ROM

Crime against cultural property affects all regions of the world. In Europe, the figures are constantly going up and are evidence of criminals' increasing interest in works of art.

Thousands of works of art are stolen every year in countries such as Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Russia and the Czech Republic.

Given this dramatic situation, Interpol is convinced that if the fight against the illicit traffic in works of art is to be effective, information must be circulated as widely as possible. The international stolen works of art notices published by Interpol met these needs, but their circulation was limited and it is now essential to make a wider public aware of the problem.

Article 4(4) of the UNIDROIT Convention of June 1995, provides that 'in determining whether the possessor exercised due diligence, regard shall be had to all the circumstances of the acquisition, including the character of the parties, the price paid, whether the possessor consulted any reasonably accessible register of stolen cultural objects, and any other relevant information and documentation which it could reasonably have obtained, and whether the possessor consulted accessible agencies or took any other step that a reasonable person would have taken in the circumstances'.

On the basis of this Convention, Interpol decided to produce a CD-ROM on Stolen Works of Art. The CD-ROM contains the information which Interpol's member countries have provided to the General Secretariat. They have agreed that this information can be communicated to the public for crime prevention purposes.

The CD-ROM is designed for police and customs services, museums, auction rooms, antique dealers, collectors and art lovers in general, and lists about 31,500 works of art and cultural property items such as paintings, sculptures and tapestries, with search possibilities based on different criteria: title of the work, name of the artist, description of the work or its dimensions and technique used. The CD-ROM is available in English, French and Spanish.

However, the CD-ROM is obviously not a complete database of all the works of art stolen throughout the world. Users should therefore be aware that the CD-ROM is only one of the registers reasonably accessible to the public referred to in the UNIDROIT Convention. The fact that an object being sought does not appear in the DVD does not mean that it has not been stolen.

By promoting its role in the field, Interpol wishes to assist in the fight against traffic in stolen works of art. For this purpose, the CD-ROM allows access to selected police information to those who are involved with the works of art market (antique dealers, museums, auction rooms, collectors, etc.). It is therefore a tool which can be used to identify the works of art and to detect illegal possession.

By using our database, subscribers are, in effect, contributing to Interpol's aim of the prevention and suppression of illicit traffic in works of art and cultural property that form our countries' wealth.

For more information and conditions of subscription, please contact the specialized unit under:

Stolen Works of Art