Dirty Money, Pretty Art Fighting Money Laundering in the Age of Art Financializaton May 2020
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Dirty Money, Pretty Art Fighting Money Laundering in the Age of Art Financializaton May 2020 Written on 1 behalf of the Limburg Police and PVOL for the Maastricht University Premium Program Table of Contents Contributors ............................................................................................................................. 4 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 5 Index of Examples .................................................................................................................... 6 Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 7 Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 10 Part 1- Monetizing masterpieces: Mapping the phenomenon of the financialization of art ... 12 Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 13 Introducing the Art Market .................................................................................................... 14 What is the Financialization of Art? ....................................................................................... 17 The Art Market Today ............................................................................................................ 19 Traditional Art World Stakeholders ....................................................................................... 20 New Art World Stakeholders ................................................................................................. 26 Non-Art World Stakeholders .................................................................................................. 33 Understanding the art world opacity and lack of transparency ........................................... 36 The Art Market Tomorrow ..................................................................................................... 39 Part 2- The Dark side of the Financialization of Art: Money Laundering Mechanisms through art ............................................................................................................................................... 40 Part 2 Executive Summary ..................................................................................................... 41 What is Money Laundering? .................................................................................................. 42 How is Money Laundered in the Art Market? ....................................................................... 43 The trigger: Why does the Dutch police ask for more collaboration with the art market? . 45 Examples ................................................................................................................................ 47 The Role of Freeports and Custom Warehouses ................................................................... 53 The code of capital – How the law creates wealth and inequality ....................................... 55 Comparison with other markets ............................................................................................ 56 Greater Regulation as a Solution? ......................................................................................... 59 Part 3- A “cleaner” art world through legislation? An overview of anti-money laundering laws in the art world ........................................................................................................................... 60 Part 3 Executive Summary ..................................................................................................... 61 Current Anti-Money Laundering Legislation ......................................................................... 62 Focus on the Netherlands ...................................................................................................... 66 2 Art-Secured Loans .................................................................................................................. 69 Free ports and customs warehouses from a legal perspective ............................................ 71 EU legal Framework for illicit trafficking of cultural goods ................................................... 74 Case Studies ........................................................................................................................... 75 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 79 Part 4: Let’s talk! Setting a dialogue between law enforcement and the art world ................. 81 Executive Summary ................................................................................................................ 82 Preliminary conditions of a successful dialogue .................................................................... 83 Our recommendations and conclusion ................................................................................. 89 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................... 95 Appendix 1: Interviews ........................................................................................................... 95 Appendix 2 .............................................................................................................................. 95 Appendix 3 .............................................................................................................................. 96 Endnotes ..................................................................................................................................... 99 3 Contributors Vinciane Jones Georgina Hadjifrangiskou Ellen Cantraine Oliver Bossert Margaux Nonclercq 4 Acknowledgements Firstly, we would like to express our great appreciation to our amazing tutor, Christoph Rausch, for helping us achieve this coherent outcome, through both his expertise and knowledge, as well as his constructive feedback. Further, we would like to thank Leonie Bouwknegt as well as Jeroen Duijsens and the Art-Crime division of Limburg Police, for trusting us with this project and offering great guidance throughout our research. Our special thanks also to Ortrun Merkle for coaching us all individually and as a group, ensuring that we all reached our full potential in the project, as well as to Fabienne Crombach and the whole of the Premium Team, for providing us with this opportunity and giving us the support we needed in this challenging journey. We would also like to thank Oana Amuza Conabie, for sharing her insights into the topic through her extensive personal research. Finally, we would like to thank all our interviewees for providing us with answers and significant information, which turned out to be decisive for our final recommendations. 5 Index of Examples Artsper: Paying on Online Art Marketplaces 27 Catawiki: Online Art Marketplace 27 Inigo Philbrick case: Challenges to fractionalized ownership 28 Edemar Cid Ferreira and Basquiat: Money Laundering and Art 47 Helly Nahmad: Money Laundering and Art 47 The Modigliani Affair: Panama Papers and Art 48 The Ganz Collection Scandal: Panama Papers and Art 49-50 Dmitri Rybolovlev and Bouvier: Freeports, Money Laundering and Art 50-51 The Chinese Art Market and Corruption 51-52 Freeports and Illicit Art Trade 54 Rudy Kurniawan scandal: Money Laundering and Fakes in the Wine Market 56 “Noble crus” investment fund: Ponzi Scheme in the Wine Market 57 Diamond Marketing: Using technology to solve provenance issues 57 Aristophil: Fractionalized Ownership Scheme in the Ancient Books and Manuscripts Market 58 Case study: Geneva Freeport 75-78 Case study: TEFAF Maastricht 78 Dutch Customs and TEFAF 85 IADAA and the Dutch Police 85 Art Detectives 85 FBI Art Crime 86 6 Executive Summary This report deals with the financialization of art and its potential for criminal activity in the art market, focusing on issues of money laundering and freeports. The main findings are summarized in the following. Part 1 - Monetizing masterpieces: Mapping the phenomenon of the financialization of art • The financialization of art means the art market sees an emergence of new financial instruments and that it is affected by the "increasing role of financial motives, financial markets, financial actors and financial institutions of the operation of... economies". Essentially, it means that art is being increasingly treated as an asset class and used as an investment. • The financialization of art is still relatively limited: there are no tradable art indexes, derivatives to bet on a fall in prices, or credit default swaps to trade the risk related to art-backed loans • If the market seems to be reluctant to be more transparent it seems to be because confidentiality has become an unwritten rule to guarantee the functioning of the market. However, there are art world actors who take advantage of the confidentiality and use it for their own gain in suspicious and secretive ways. • There is some level of trust and regulation because dealers are concerned about maintain a good reputation. Trade associations such as IADAA also play a role in this as they have a code of ethics and/or due-diligence guidelines Part 2 - The Dark side of the Financialization of Art: Money Laundering Mechanisms