United Technologies is an aircraft company. Trafficking?

Pitney Bowes is a logistics company which is a major red flag.

The 91.1M is interesting on it's own. Why the decimal point - the extra 100k? Seems to me if one is buying a piece of art for that amount, that extra 100k is irrelevant, so why add it on to the price tag? "$91M is a touch too low, how about $91.1M and it's a deal?"

So you're taking Cicciolina's word? Based on what?

Also you're aware they had a massive custody dispute? One that saw the NY courts award custody to him. Do you think she made these claims to the NY court? or that she made them up after she defied a court order and took the child out of the country.

I described one way long ago, in a post showing its a market dominated by Jewish hedge fund owners. How could it NOT be a scam.

First they inflate the values by cultivating the artists through gallerists like Gagosian and Saatchi and complicit auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's, reaching 9-figure transactions often since 2009.

Then they start tax-exempt foundations or private museums, like Bill Clinton’s Jewish friend Eli Broad of L.A., whose personal attorney was Hillary as far back as 1983, because established museums don't want to display their retarded “contemporary” artwork anyway and because they can save millions in taxes by donating cash or even stock to it.

https://voat.co/v/pizzagate/3222284/18645288

The art is sold as a "package deal" with children, drugs, hell I dunno. Uranium? The public rabbit transaction happens in public while 90 million dollars worth of whatever rolls out in trucks. And someone has a 91 million dollar piece of "art"

This is all a game for the Pedo Elite. Like buying and selling wine, cars, spirits, etc. When one is worth 2B, 90M is a drop in the bucket. Just like buying/selling/trading/disposing of humans.

Then I read this article and this part stood out. The sculpture was projected to sell for $70 million but exceeded expectations when Robert Mnuchin outbid several Asian investors.

The selling price was 80 million, the commissions and fees bring it up 91 million. The auction house had estimated it at 50-70 million, so it exceeded expectations, but not hugely. That article makes it look like Mnunchin came it at the last minute. That's incorrect. There was about 4 bidders going through most of the bidding which started at 40 million.

Could the Asian investors be from China?

They certainly could be, but Asia is a pretty huge place with a lot of serious players in the art world, Japan, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates come to mind. India has wealth too, but not sure if they have any serious collectors in this market.

Right now they are probably freaking out about what a Trump reelection could do to their economy. Could they have been trying to launder money into our country to financially help the cause of outing Trump?

No. The money laundering aspect of this makes absolutely no sense. They spent 91 million bucks on this. There's only 4 people in the world willing at the moment to spend more than $60 million on this, you will need to hold on to this for a long time to get back what you paid.

I wonder if Koons will ever get that 91 million

Wonder no longer. Koons gets exactly $0 of this money. Why? He didn't own the piece up for sale. He created back in the 80's and sold it. The guy who eventually bought it died and now his estate put it up for auction, after the auction houses take their cut, his estate will get $80 million dollars and his heirs will get some chunk of that once it all works out. Koons, as a living artist, gets to charge a lot of money for new works, but he made nothing from this sale.

Was Robert Mnuchin prepared to outbid them whatever the cost in order stop the transaction?

How does this make sense? If the Chinese were going to pay $60 million and Mnuchin paid $70 million, what exactly was gained? The Chinese still have $60 million bucks and the guy who owns the sculpture just got $10 million more.

Who knows but something is up, this is really weird.

It's not really weird. There's a strong market for Jeff Koons work and post war American art has been selling really strongly.

Hmmm... interesting thought.

Here, let me help you out:

The link between art and money laundering

The notoriously opaque and largely unregulated art market faces greater scrutiny as financial authorities discover it has become the ideal money-laundering tool, an art conference in London heard on Thursday.

One of the presenters at the Art Business Conference, Michael Martin, head of the forensic and anti money-laundering services at Deloitte Luxembourg, said "art is one of the asset classes that obviously lends itself to money laundering."

He noted that European financial regulators are starting to clamp down on the art market to make it transparent and reduce its appeal to money launderers. In June, Stiliano Ordilli, head of the Swiss Money Laundering Reporting Office, said "there must be a real regulation of the art market, if only to protect the honest traders."

Mr. Martin said that "if he [Mr. Ordilli] calls for it, he has to have concerns" that using art sales for money laundering – concealing the source of illegally obtained money – is a big business.

There are no accepted estimates on the amounts of money laundered through the art market, although the general belief is that it is enormous and expanding as regulations on other asset classes, from real estate to foreign exchange, tighten up everywhere. 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.

Some high-profile economists, including Nouriel Roubini of New York University's Stern School, have been making pleas for greater regulation of the global art market, which was worth €51-billion ($75-billion) in 2014, according to this year's Art Market Report, published by the European Fine Art Fair.

At the World Economic Forum in January in Davos, Mr. Roubini, himself an art collector, said: "Whether we like it or not, art is used for tax avoidance and evasion. It can be used for money laundering. You can buy something for half a million, not show a passport, and ship it. Plenty of people are using it for laundering."

Speaking on the sidelines of the Art Business Conference, Pierre Valentin, head of the art law practice at London law firm Constantine Cannon, said laundering illicit funds through the art market was seductive because purchases at auctions "can be anonymous and it's a moveable asset. You can put the art on a private plane and take it anywhere. Plus there is no registration system for art."

Once purchased, the art can disappear from view for years, even decades. A lot of the art bought at auctions goes to freeports – ultra-secure warehouses for the collections of millionaires and billionaires, ranging from Picassos and gold to vintage Ferraris and fine wine. The freeports, which exist in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Singapore, offer a variety of tax advantages because the goods stored in them are technically in transit. The Economist magazine reported that the freeport near the Geneva airport alone is thought to hold $100-billion (U.S.) of art.

Once inside the freeport, the art can be sold privately and anonymously to other buyers. The art need never leave the warehouse after the private sale is completed.

In February, Swiss businessman and Singapore resident Yves Bouvier, known as the "king of the freeports," was arrested in Monaco on suspicion of manipulating art prices and money laundering. His company, Natural Le Coultre, specializes in the transportation and storage of fine art and luxury items.

Recently, some countries in Europe, including Luxembourg and Switzerland, have passed laws to clamp down on money laundering in the art market. Starting in 2016, Switzerland will cap cash transactions at 100,000 Swiss francs ($135,000). Payments above that cash limit will have to be made by credit card, creating a paper trail, or the seller will have to carry out due diligence to ensure the legal origins of the funds.

The Chinese art market, where regulation is lax, is thought to be particularly prone to money laundering. "The [Chinese] art market has become more and more abnormal," Wang Shouzhi, dean of the Cheung Kong School of Art and Design at Shantou University, told the South China Morning Post in April. "It is saturated with business tricks, fake works and fake prices. … It has become a tool for corruption and money laundering."

Oh look...Sotheby's Head Shill in Charge is weighing in. Art is only worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. If a piece of art would normally sell for 2 million based on market conditions, but the parties involved in the sale agree to inflate it's value, then a $2M piece of art (market) could be sold for $18M, or whatever price of to include black money being laundered through a sale. Koons is not O'Keefe, Pollack, Picasso, Rodin, etc.

Apologies that I cannot simplify this any further.

A team of graphic artists could easily churn stuff like this out.

well, and that's exactly what happens. He employs a team of artists who create most of his works for him.

You are aware that original art sells for more than copies do?

And if had to look up Koons then the entire art market, not just his stuff, but all of it, probably makes no sense. It's probably something you don't care about.

Isn't this also part of the plan? To make shitty 'art' seem more important than it actually is? It's kind of telling people to stop thinking for themselves. I mean I have been to art galleries and have laughed my head off and said so. The looks you get when you point out that the 'emperor is naked' are priceless. They are all falling for this. They don't see when they are shafted and pretend to be knowledgeable, when in fact they are sheep.

This isn't art, it's to influence people to be told what to like and what not. Anyone with a brain cell can see that most of modern art is a load of crock. And yes I do understand art and that some has a message, but when you see some wood laid out on the floor and a stone plonked in the middle, and people go 'hmm yeah, yeah, fascinating..'I lose my rag.

The Art in Embassies program is without doubt a massive money/human laundering op. I can't see any other reason.

BTW auralsects, you are sounding a litte impatient. Blacksmith21 isn't stupid.... he/she probably didn't see what you said earlier. Let's not bite each other - we are all going after the same enemy here.

Do me a favor, dickhead. Point where Mnuchin's sister is on the BOD: https://childmind.org/about-us/board-of-directors/

She co-chaired an event.

You're something of a pillow-biting Muslim bottom, IIRC?

Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. You are spamming me. Oh the irony. At least my posts are informative and useful.

You sound like a faggot. I'm glad your my first response.

its the ga fags

reread it. this pedo money launderer is the father of trumps treasury pick