“Although it is difficult to track the extent of the black-market culture trade, several have tried to do so. According to Argos, a French insurance group, about US$10-billion worth of art treasures is stolen and traded around the world every year. It’s become the fourth-largest illicit activity – behind drugs, guns and fraud. The history of modern conflict is the history of mass looting – and not just the garden-variety filching of electronic goods; an educated few leap on wars as opportunities to take a nation’s cultural collections into private hands.”