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.Formation and history
The Art and Antiques Unit was established in 1969.. 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.
The unit maintains the London Stolen Arts Database, containing details of thousands of items of stolen cultural property. The unit consists of around three full time detectives. In Italy, the Carabinieri Art Squad employs around 300.Notable investigations
The unit's work led to the successful prosecution of Jonathan Tokeley-Parry in 1997 for smuggling Egyptian antiquities. In 2007, the forger Sean Greenhalgh was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
In 2019, artefacts seized by the unit in 2002 were repatriated to Afghanistan.
