More pieces of the puzzle? I brief look into possible links between Honey Traps-Trafficking-Art Dealers-Money Laundering-IMF-DSK.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/international-business/european-business/economists-urge-tighter-regulations-to-curb-money-laundering-in-art-market/article26217852/
The International Monetary Fund estimated that “the amount available for laundering through the financial system” was worth 2.7 per cent of global gross domestic product in 2009 or $1.6-trillion (U.S.).
The relative ease of laundering illicit funds through art dealers and auction houses is thought to have contributed to the spectacular rise in the value of fine art in recent years.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/how-illegal-poker-and-russian-mob-might-have-sunk-obama-appointee/315861/
What do President Obama, the Russian mob, Tobey Maguire, hedge funds, Olympic figure skaters, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Bill Clinton, A-Rod, France, and the "London Whale" have in common? They're all connected (more or less) to a complicated web of money, politics, and illegal poker that may have cost one innocent man an ambassadorship.
The trouble started last week when about 30 people were busted in New York City and Los Angeles for running a lucrative gambling and money-laundering racket. The scheme involved high-stakes poker games that featured celebrities, poker pros, and high-powered Wall Streeters playing for hands of ten of thousands of dollars, which were then laundered through a high-end Manhattan art gallery
http://www.malaysiandigest.com/world/540253-high-profile-french-trial-shines-light-on-use-of-sex-to-sweeten-business-deals.html
High-Profile French Trial Shines Light On Use Of Sex To Sweeten Business Deals
The trial of former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn ("DSK", former head of IMF) and several businessmen on pimping charges has shone a light on the world of high-end prostitution in which sex is often used to sweeten business deals.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dominique-strauss-kahn-pimping-trial-former-head-of-the-imf-expected-to-take-the-stand-10035324.html
(DSK) Former head of the IMF is one of 13 people accused of organising sex parties with prostitutes in six countries
http://nymag.com/news/features/dominique-strauss-kahn-2011-8/
Billionairess Anne Sinclair stood by her man when just about everyone else in the world believed the maid. Is it that she knows Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Or that she doesn’t?
(Former DSK wife, Anne) Sinclair, an extraordinarily wealthy art-world heiress and a pillar of European Jewish society, was born in New York, but she didn’t like the U.S. much. Though she bought a $4 million townhouse in Georgetown for Strauss-Kahn after he took over as head of the IMF, ...
Sinclair is the granddaughter of Paul Rosenberg, one of the most important French dealers of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art. (Sinclair, who has written more than three dozen books, is currently researching one about his life.) His gallery, in the Boétie quarter of Paris, where most of the Jewish art dealers sold their wares before the Nazi occupation,
DOUBLED-EDGED SWORD???
http://www.globalresearch.ca/regime-change-at-the-imf-the-frame-up-of-dominique-strauss-kahn/24866
In many regards the DSK scandal was a watershed in the evolution of EU-US relations, with European governments becoming increasingly subservient to Washington’s demands.
Regime Change at the IMF. The Obama administration had demanded DSK’s replacement by a more compliant individual.
In retrospect, the framing of Strauss Kahn and the appointment of Lagarde had an impact not only on EU economic restructuring including the crisis in Greece, but also on the State structures of the French Republic.
The “Honey Trap” is a powerful instrument. Had DSK not been framed, Francois Hollande — who largely serves US interests– would no doubt not have been elected president of the French Republic and Christine Lagarde would not have acceded to the positon of Managing Director if the IMF.
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ReadThatAlready ago
From the way I understand it art and art forgery is an easy and old money laundering operation and scam. Paintings are cheap to make, maybe $500 or less, so the art is made cheap and quick and is bought cheaply by an "investor" from the artist, then a "critic" talks up the artist (both are usually a member of the communist party) and his work so the art is deemed "important" as "socially conscience" even if it's crap, and then it is sold at a high price to a foreign buyer also of the communist party or just some dupe, the money is kicked back to the artist through group "endowments" (often government endowments or endowments established by communist party leaders a hundred years ago) and through individual "patrons" that support the artist. Because an actual item was purchased large amounts of money can be shifted from one person or country to another and the money is "clean." And so politicians and crime lords can use the art community as a way to move large sums of money around. Real art has value but it isn't worth millions of dollars. It just isn't. Especially not modern art and that's what is usually being sold for lots of money. And from my research it seems that forgeries can be more profitable than modern art. A decent artist makes a copy of an old piece or something like one he's seen so it that would qualify as a newly discovered work by an old artist, and art "experts" are called in to verify it, those experts are paid off to verify the work, and "official" art catalogues of old artists are forged and inserted into old libraries so the books look like contain a record or photo of the work as having existed, and those books and experts are used to grant legitimacy to the piece, the stamps and stickers from auction houses can be forged or somebody there can be bribed to stamp the piece so that it looks like it's passed through legitimate sale through auction houses a long time ago, and somebody is sold a fake piece, or maybe even with their knowledge just so the piece held onto for a while and then sold for big profit to a dupe. Youtube has documentaries about John Myatt case and Eric Hebborn and "hot art" that explains how it's done. Word has it Myatt's partner was using their scam to raise money for OPs, but that was never confirmed.