I cant fathom what it would be like to just turn a profit of 10 million on one trade. I mean, you could just give 10% to everyone you care about and their lives would be changed forever.<p>Yeah I know some of you reading this will have much more, but I personally, can't fathom doing it just once, imagine, just for a days work.
There was a similar lawsuit in the early 00’s (I think, it might have been the late 90’s though) with Sotheby’s caught ripping off clients in a similar way.<p>My family lost a bunch of money on a Canova bust that’s now at the Ashmolean in Oxford.
It’s a little known fact that IQ is positively correlated with income, but there’s no correlation at all with net wealth. It is to be expected that there will be entire industries that spring up to extract some of that wealth from the less bright wealthy. The art market is one of such industries.
prepandemic I used to run in those circles, Monaco, Switzerland OTC commodities dealers<p>the people involved are total jokes<p>they are extremely poor judges of character and endlessly shop deals around WhatsApp groups for dumb reasons<p>people are praised for having been associated with something outside of the domain they are currently in, which is an obvious red herring and red flag, and then get scammed or have a bad deal where the other party cant deliver amicably, as there was nothing to suggest they would? I see the same in the US but it seems like a generational thing only boomers and mormons fall for. Elder abuse, pun intended for the latter<p>but there are real “established” people in these European networks, sometimes, its just such a shitshow. because established means a dynasty of some sort, older than the US itself<p>a lot of the participation is just pride and grasping for autonomy, like the first born son thrust into managing some feudal era family office has no clue what he’s doing, and wants a good trade for once, but it was in some dilapidated mansion on the french riviera that now he needs to get out of before his family finds out, and France starts taxing Monaco citizens that hold property in France. and then the middle men are sourcing these dumb deals because they got screwed once and genuinely want to pay their old partners, at first, chasing gold and markups for the rest of their lives. its wild, I had to go back to tech these people are just dumb and the US markets are just so much more mature in comparison.<p>but yes, you might meet the Saudi prince’s Hand in Monaco and sell him a painting for $450m<p>by far the most interesting part of this story is that Mr Bouvier purchased and took delivery of <i>some</i> art pieces before reselling them, instead of just trying to dropship or connect people. way to go.
Art done right is a tax dodge by the wealthy.<p>Rich person buys a painting, by an artist, for $50 million and puts it in their collection.<p>Another person buys another painting by the same artist for $75 million.<p>The rich person gets their painting reappraised by an art expert. It is now “estimated” to be worth $75 million.<p>The rich person donates the work to a museum, a non-profit. The donation gives them a $75 million tax write off.<p>The rich person just saved $25 million that would have otherwise been taxed.