If they make the illigitimate transaction first, and then "sold" the art later, to the original person or someone else, then it would be money laundering, but if the two transactions occurred simultaneously, then it is instead an illegal transaction that included within it some legal goods. And if they sold the art first, then it's simply distribution of illegal things within a vaccuum. The chronology matters a lot.
The wordplay actually helps a great deal here: Money laundering is when you get dirty messy money, and then you clean up the money so its all nice and usable. Like sending a shirt to a laundry service. But that means there needs to be money to launder in the first place. A person who switches all their cash into bitcoin and then back into cash, THEN robs a bank, isn't laundering the stolen money, it came later.
And the rich and powerful know this. Why add extra liability to your actions? So they pre-purchase the inflated-price "legitimate" goods. Epstein infamously had that weird painting of Bill Clinton in underwear, it's probably an excellent example of such an item, since that item would never see open market sale to give a real valuation.
It is grey area, from what I understand.
If they make the illigitimate transaction first, and then "sold" the art later, to the original person or someone else, then it would be money laundering, but if the two transactions occurred simultaneously, then it is instead an illegal transaction that included within it some legal goods. And if they sold the art first, then it's simply distribution of illegal things within a vaccuum. The chronology matters a lot.
The wordplay actually helps a great deal here: Money laundering is when you get dirty messy money, and then you clean up the money so its all nice and usable. Like sending a shirt to a laundry service. But that means there needs to be money to launder in the first place. A person who switches all their cash into bitcoin and then back into cash, THEN robs a bank, isn't laundering the stolen money, it came later.
And the rich and powerful know this. Why add extra liability to your actions? So they pre-purchase the inflated-price "legitimate" goods. Epstein infamously had that weird painting of Bill Clinton in underwear, it's probably an excellent example of such an item, since that item would never see open market sale to give a real valuation.