(15/15) Some sources for this thread & for more on transparency in the art market, see @georginaaa.bsky.social's book(s), @samknightwrites.bsky.social's piece on Bouvier, Jordan Carver's fascinating journal article www.jstor.org/s., and @museumofloot.bsky.social's good news about looted artifacts

(14/15) What now? How do we prevent the next fraud that exploits the issue of transparency? We would have to fundamentally change the art world. But advocating for transparency isn't a lost cause. And the first step is recognizing just how many problems tie back to the opacity of the art world.

(13/15) It's 🤯 that the art market has normalized a complete lack of transparency, allowing for some of the biggest art crimes in recent history: Philbirck wouldn't have been able to pull off his scheme, illegal goods couldn't hide in the GF, and Rybo wouldn't have been duped for years. So:

(12/15) While Rybo believed Bouv had been acting as his art ADVISOR (finding new art for him to buy) he was actually acting as art DEALER (finding new art, buying it, then upselling it to Rybo). The craziest part? Bouv never did anything technically illegal, thx to the art market's opacity news.artn

(11/15) Enter Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev. In 2002 Rybo would form a kind of partnership with the man behind the Geneva Freeport, Yves Bouvier. But the exact details of that partnership led to a #betrayal a decade in the making - and an accusation of a $1.2 billion overcharge.

(10/15) Ergo the lack of transparency in the art market abets the looted artifacts trade: multiple discoveries of illegally excavated Etruscan artifacts have been found stored in the GF. Sounds pretty #sketchy, right? There's more, a $1-billion-scandal kind of more.

(9/15) Unlike flying into a country and declaring your possessions (especially a $$$ painting), with a free port all the info you need to have is value of the painting, the shipper, & the consignee. The GF even provides a fiduciary service that sends the painting for you: it can be totally anon!

(8/15) If you were a millionaire who wanted to pay as few taxes as possible OR someone who needed to store looted artifacts, the GF would be the place for you. Besides being a tax-free purgatory, it provides an even more sought-after service: secrecy. Let's break that down:

(7/15) So the Geneva Freeport may look unassuming, but it holds one of the world’s largest art collections: ~1.2 million pieces of art in storage, estimated at a value of $100 billion. It's like one of the greatest museums no one has access to. Or, almost no one...

(6/15) Hence today’s “discretion” in the art market (the elite’s preferred term for secrecy). And no place does “elite” and “discretion” better than the Geneva Freeport. If you’re unfamiliar with free ports, here’s a clip from the movie Tenet that sums up its services and reputation youtu.be/yNCsT-

(5/15) In 19th century US, when rich aristocratic families went #broke (how embarrassing!) they would sell their collections anonymously, and new money families wanting to impress would buy these collections (also anonymously: too taboo to buy the property of members of the same social class!) So...

(4/15) A: pretty much everyone in the art world. This has been the standard since 15th century art markets in Antwerp. Steep competition = smart to keep an artist’s clients #secret to not get taken by other artists. But there are more recent, elitist roots to this secrecy: think The Great Gatsby...

(3/15)Here’s how: buying a painting isn't the same as buying a 🚗 or 🏠. Art is bought & sold with no expectation of background documentation or provenance. In fact the whole process can be done anonymously. So who would spend millions on art without knowing its authenticity, or even who's selling it?

(2/15)Let's start with our #hotshot art dealer: Inigo Philbrick, behind what the FBI claims is the largest art fraud in American history. Philbrick was selling shares of paintings he didn't own or that didn't even exist: like one big Ponzi scheme. But how on 🌍 did he sell even one nonexistent share?