Investigating Online Heritage Crime: New Directions, New Technologies, Emerging Markets

From Reddit and YouTube to collector forums and live auctions, the avenues through which human remains can be bought and sold are rapidly growing alongside new digital technologies. Considering anew the implications of this digital expansion for the online trafficking of human remains, Investigating Online Heritage Crime conducts an exacting examination of these relatively under-researched ＂sites＂ of heritage crime, revealing how this underground world operates within the wider social media ecosystem of platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Through doing so, this volume illuminates how developments in AI and LLM (Large Language Model) usage are profoundly reshaping the global online trafficking marketplace, and how public policy can best adapt to this change.

Damien Huffer is an osteoarchaeologist and interdisciplinary illicit trafficking researcher. He was most recently Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Social Science at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is one of the cofounders of the Alliance to Counter Crime Online.