M, le magazine du Monde “Jewelry is easy to steal and circulate”: when jewels vanish into thin air – by Gaspard Dhellemmes with Laure Assumpçao

The jewelry sector and, more generally, the art market have become “a veritable playground for organized crime, helping to finance other illicit trades and networks: arms trafficking, drug trafficking and terrorism”, explains Laure Assumpçao, a lawyer at UGGC.

“Every criminal organization needs financing, for example to pay its henchmen or buy weapons. Jewelry is easy to steal and move around. Criminal networks also turn to this type of offence, as they are punished by lower sentences than other offences, such as drug trafficking, which makes jewelry and works of art particularly vulnerable”, explains the lawyer.

Read his analysis in M, le magazine du Monde