[joncalhoun]

I don't think plausible deniability works on one-of-a-kind artwork. Even if you assume your dealer is legit, any cursory research will tell you it was stolen. It would be like buying the secret formula for Coca-Cola and claiming you didn't know it was stolen because it went through multiple middlemen.

[reaperducer]

These aren't paintings that are on display to the public after they're stolen. They're kept in houses and families for generations, and by then, time has laundered their provenance. If you read art news, it's not uncommon for museums to have paintings donated to them by the grandchildren of the person who bought the painting, only to learn half a century later that the painting was stolen.

And if someone doesn't like their stolen painting after a while, there are plenty of dealers who will hook you up with a similarly amoral buyer. The fee is higher, to go with the risk.

There's an entire class of rich people who sometimes go by the label "globalist" who believe they are above national laws, and nations, themselves. They see themselves as "citizens of the world" and sometimes even think they shouldn't need passports to travel because their egos tell them they're so fabulous, and have the money to back it up.

I read a magazine or newspaper article about it last year. Many of them attend that big meeting of super-rich people and the politicians they've bought in Davos each year.

[nothrabannosir]

> ... sometimes even think they shouldn't need passports to travel

well, I technically don't disagree with them there..

> ... and by then, time has laundered their provenance.

This is poetry. <3

[crazygringo]

I mean I have no idea what a judge would think.

But I'm not sure it's entirely outlandish. The buyer just spins a story to the judge: "the dealer said he could acquire a van Gogh from someone's private collection, I loved its appearance, so I paid them to do that." The buyer could insist the dealer said the painting was unnamed, that they would have had no way of ever knowing it was the same one stolen from a museum, etc. (That they certainly never bothered to take a photo and upload it to Google Image Search because why would they?)

To complicate things even further, you can even say you assumed it was a different original version. Just Google "multiple versions of van gogh" and you'll see that the artist would make multiple versions of the same painting.

Obviously the buyer in this case does know what going on -- they initiated the whole thing. But as long as there are no records of communication and the dealer has been paid off to take the fall, they can play dumb in front of a judge if it ever came to that. With a good lawyer, they might very well get away with playing the victim.

[moftz]

If you have enough money to finance an art heist or buy a priceless Van Gogh from a "dealer", you probably have enough money to not go to jail over an art theft. The collector pays a replica price on paper but in reality pays much more to the dealer. If caught, you just say you thought it was a replica, the dealer says they thought it was a replica, their dealer says the same, and so on until no one ends up with any jail time.

[ardy42]

> If you have enough money to finance an art heist or buy a priceless Van Gogh from a "dealer", you probably have enough money to not go to jail over an art theft. The collector pays a replica price on paper but in reality pays much more to the dealer. If caught, you just say you thought it was a replica, the dealer says they thought it was a replica, their dealer says the same, and so on until no one ends up with any jail time.

But that story just beggars belief. Sure it's a story, but one that makes no sense at all unless you're willing to entertain the ludicrous premise that someone would steal painting just to sell it as a cheaper replica. Furthermore, a professional art dealer could probably be expected to be able to tell the difference between a replica and a genuine painting. Otherwise, who would buy genuine paintings from him?

I think a prosecutor would be able to quickly identify an individual in the chain of custody who clearly should have known the painting was stolen, and is thus be guilty of receiving stolen property:

https://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federa...

[OrangeMango]

You can always claim to have purchased a "professional-quality" reproduction from a "reputable" dealer.

[black_puppydog]

happens all the time that you ask for a replica and the dealer secretly plants a multi million dollar artwork in your bedroom. Seems legit. :D

[frandroid]

And you've just decided that the "replica" was so good that you paid stolen-art-on-the-black-market money for it, not "good replica painter" money for it...

[asdff]

The thing is your books say "good replica money" and only your crypto wallet or offshore account or shell company slush fund or pile of gold have the 'stolen-art-on-the-black-market' money removed from the balance sheet. Smart accountants are payed a lot of money to figure out exactly how to hide this from overworked and underpaid auditors.

[SlowRobotAhead]

To be fair... if you did steal a one of a kind and needed a buyer, you could sell it as the worlds best replica.

[DonHopkins]

You could claim you were hustled!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hustle_episodes#Series...

Hustle, S08E02: "Picasso Finger Painting"

Ash and Mickey have tried to capitalise on the theft of a rare Picasso by selling a fake to a well-known collector, Petre Sava (Peter Polycarpou), a vicious Eastern European gangster. They learn too late that Sava who owned the stolen original. Mickey is taken prisoner by Sava, leaving Ash and the others with just a few hours to return the real stolen painting, otherwise Mickey is a dead man. With their usual contacts unable to give any clues, except only the word that a Scottish crew were behind the theft, the gang visit renowned Picasso forger Dolly Hammond (Sheila Hancock) (the one who helped to create the fake). She points them in the direction of the McCrary brothers, the thieves in question, and are told that they stole the original painting for another renowned gangster, Harry Holmes (Martin Kemp). Time is ticking and Mickey is edging closer to death; if the group can't find the real painting, Ash will have to devise a plan that can get him back...

[Xelbair]

>Oh, i was sure that i was buying a great reproduction!