[eftychis]

I mean art and other not easily evaluated assets are used for drug trafficking and money laundering.

Auction houses are known to be on the trick -- that is passively mainly/ they don't care and work to "pump" the prices of artwork. But of course law enforcement agencies know about it too.

It shouldn't be illegal: people should be free to buy what they want. But let's not hide behind our noses.

[rmbyrro]

This only work because they hire the right lawyers, who dinner with the right persons across all law enforcement branches.

[zozbot234]

More simply, they might get away with it because, by and large, they're not actually laundering illegal funds, but merely using the exact same tricks to obscure all sorts of socially disreputable but not actually illegal stuff. Of course, there's a real gray area since arguably a lot of disreputable stuff should also be illegal. But by the same token, some people might genuinely want more privacy depending on their circumstances.

[rmbyrro]

Maybe not, but they certainly use art to dodge taxes, which could be framed as fraud, if they were not well covered legally.