K2 Integrity senior director Tommaso Di Ruzza helped co-organize and coordinate UNIDROIT’s high-level workshop, “Art Market Integrity: Balancing the Protection of Cultural Heritage and the Prevention of Financial Crime,” held 4–5 June 2026 at UNIDROIT’s headquarters in Rome.
The workshop brought together representatives from international organizations, national supervisors, financial intelligence units, law enforcement agencies, and the private sector to address financial crime risks in the global art and antiquities market.
Tommaso moderated the session “The Art-Finance Nexus: Leveraging Preventive Intelligence,” which focused on maximizing the use of preventive financial intelligence to disrupt illicit trafficking and mitigate financial crime risks within art and antiquities markets. The session included speakers from the Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units, the Italian Financial Intelligence Unit, and Switzerland’s Money Laundering Reporting Office.
The workshop resulted in the Rome Statement on Art Market Integrity, a participant-endorsed statement that calls for stronger coordination between cultural heritage protection and anti-money laundering, counter-terrorist financing, and broader financial crime prevention frameworks. The current disconnect between the two frameworks carries strategic and operational repercussions and results in legal gaps that criminals exploit to their advantage.
Tommaso’s work in this area—including his 2024 Journal of Art Crime article “Art, Antiquities, and Financial Crimes: Circular Criminality in Art”—is cited in the Rome Statement. His analysis highlights how art and antiquities can function not only as objects of crime, but also as instruments within broader schemes involving fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, terrorist financing, and sanctions evasion.
Tommaso’s involvement reflects K2 Integrity’s continued thought leadership at the intersection of cultural heritage protection, financial integrity, and global public-private cooperation.