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Request:
Cultural heritage trafficking can be defined as the theft, looting and other crimes that causes that destruction and loss of artifacts and artwork with historical and cultural value which are often irreplaceable. These items are then transported and sold in other locations.
Crimes that are often linked to cultural heritage trafficking:
Theft
Looting
Fraud
Counterfeiting
Illegal exporting
Violation of national patrimony laws
Burglary
Q1. Are heritage crimes recorded in their own category or in a general category such as theft
Q2. How many of these heritage crimes as described (examples listed below) has your force recorded for the year 2023 (from 1st of January 2023 to 31st of December 2023)
- Theft
- Looting
- Fraud
- Violation of national patrimony laws
- Burglary
Q3. How does your force respond to the crimes listed below (these are the most common crime types linked to cultural heritage trafficking) in relation to heritage crime as described
- Theft
- Looting
- Fraud
- Violation of national patrimony laws
- Burglary
Q4. What is the most common outcome to heritage crimes investigations in the year of 2023
- Arrest
- Conviction
- No charge
Q5. What locations in your forces area are the most targeted for heritage crimes in the year of 2023
Q6. What items are the most targeted in your forces area for heritage crimes in the year of 2023 – such as historical coins, historical artefacts, art works, lead roofing from churches
Q7. Are groups or individuals committing heritage crimes in your forces area in the year 2023
Q8. Are there links to organised crime in your forces area in relation heritage crime in the year 2023
Q9. Have items stolen in heritage crimes from England been retrieved in your forces area in the year 2023
Q10. Have items stolen in heritage crimes from abroad been retrieved in your forces area in the year 2023
Q11. Does your force work with international partners such as Interpol when dealing with heritage crimes
Response:
Extent of Searches to Locate Information
Following receipt of your request searches were conducted within North Yorkshire Police to locate relevant information.
Decision
I am not obliged to provide you with a response to your request pursuant to Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the Act). Please note that when one part of your request falls under Section 12, we are not obliged to review the rest of the questions and the whole request is therefore exempt.
Section 12(1) applies to your request as the cost of complying with your request is above the amount to which we are legally required to respond i.e. the cost of identifying and retrieving any relevant information exceeds the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Due to the nature of our recording systems the information requested, if held, is not in an easily retrievable format. Our information retrieval process generally relies on a computer ran report which captures any information recorded upon the surface of a record or within specified fields. Where relevant information is held deeper in the record, or outside of a specified field, a manual assessment is required to retrieve that information.
As heritage crime is not a specific category to search upon, in order to retrieve the requested information, it would be necessary to manually review all crimes recorded for 2023, to establish if they specifically related to Cultural heritage trafficking or heritage crimes, which would mean reading through thousands of reports which would exceed the time limit allowed under the Act.
Pursuant to Section 17(5) of the Freedom of Information Act this letter acts as a Refusal Notice.
Pursuant to Section 16 of the Act I am required to offer you advice and assistance with regarding to refining your request to within the ‘appropriate limit’ (time/cost limit). However, We may be able to provide you with the number of incidents within a specified time frame where key words are recorded in the MO Summary field, for example “cultural heritage trafficking” or “heritage crime You would be required to provide a list of Key Words for us to search upon. However the accuracy of these results rely on an Officer recording the specific words in the field and it is likely that further manual reads would be required in order to ensure the results fit to your request (i.e. person working at the time of the incident). Due to the above I do not feel that results would be reliable. Please do not hesitate to contact me further to discuss or submit a new request.
Please note that systems used for recording information are not generic, nor are the procedures used locally in capturing the data. It should be noted therefore that this force’s response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with any other responses you may receive.