Concealment of the illicit origin of funds by reinjecting them into the legal economy; the art market is particularly exposed.
Money laundering consists of concealing the illicit origin of funds by reinjecting them into the legal economy, classically in three phases: placement, which introduces the funds into the financial circuit, layering, which multiplies transactions to blur traceability, and integration, which gives them a legitimate appearance. The art market is particularly exposed, owing to the high and portable value of works, the historical opacity of transactions, the use of intermediaries and shell structures, and discreet storage venues such as freeports. Several jurisdictions have consequently subjected the art market to due-diligence obligations, client identification and suspicious-transaction reporting, the breach of which engages the liability of intermediaries. For insurers, these compliance requirements come on top of technical underwriting: insuring a work now requires asking about its provenance and the identity of its holder, and anti-money-laundering has become a fully fledged component of the class's legal risk.
A gallery is offered the purchase of a high-value work by an offshore shell company, paid through several split transfers. Due-diligence obligations require it to identify the beneficial owner and, in case of doubt, to report the transaction to the authorities.
blanchiment de capitaux, anti-money laundering, AML, LCB-FT