Modern Art = Money Laundering Scam?
 

Art Auctions Are Just Money Laundering
http://www.newser.com/story/177753/a...aundering.html

"Michael Wolff observes in USA Today. "Art, perhaps second only to drug trafficking, is among the world's most lucrative dubious businesses," he writes. These days, it's a more efficient and private money place to hide cash than a Swiss bank. "

$1M painting, used in money-laundering scam, sent back to Brazil to reimburse defrauded victims

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/worl...ticle-1.441891

"A Roy Lichtenstein masterpiece worth more than $1 million is going back to Brazil - and the auction block - to help reimburse victims of a Brazilian mini-Madoff.

The Lichtenstein and a second painting were part of a huge art collection used by a South American scammer to launder some of the $1 billion he stole from Bancos Santos."

Wow, good for the victims. His art collection was really nice though.

I wonder if FINTRAC will start monitoring art sales.

they probably are already :2 cents:

Modern Art = Good Investment :2 cents:

Art is used to avoid tax too:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ure-heirs.html

http://www.stltoday.com/business/loc...ff3c2218f.html

Its a good cover for laudering, but roy's art is also good imho

Art is highly inflated and in fact actually worthless so it is the perfect vehicle to launder money.

It's value is abstract as is the concept of money itself. Ideal

It's crazy what people can get away with in the name of "art".

There were two pieces yanked from a gallery because they were made up of 12,000+ E pills

[EDIT - Not allowed to post links yet]

How the artist got away with that is beyond me; yes they were removed from the gallery but he faced no consequence.

Here's a quick quote from the article if you wanted to google it, or just have a quick facepalm

"Love & Death ? a 6ft skull and crossbones with an asking price of £100,000 ? and multicoloured piece Taste The Rainbow, on sale for £75,000, "

"He said the prospective buyer would be given the option to replace the tablets with fake ones."