It really just kills me anytime people suggest something expensive was bad so it's intentional and money laundering, when just taking a second to think about it would prove otherwise.
Yeah redditors seem to think anything that's expensive that they don't like is money laundering. Idk why it's so hard for them to believe that rich people can just be bad with money or have poor taste.
Now, with a fuckton of in-app purchases from different accounts, that could be a viable money laundering strategy, but now you have legitimate employees spending a huge amount of time creating accounts, purchasing gift cards, and funnelling them into the game, without making the books look suspicious. It's... possible, but painful.
I’m going to assume this is a genuine question. The point of money laundering is to take real money that is gained from illicit activities and make it insert it into the train of commerce to become “clean” and thereby avoid scrutiny.
Art has multiple features that make it ideal to launder money. When you sell your home the paperwork details the sale, including your name, and the title search lists the names of the people who owned the property before you. But when someone sells an artwork at auction — even something worth $100 million, much more than your house — the identity is typically concealed.
Oh, the paperwork might identify the work as coming from “a European collection.” But the buyer usually has no clue with whom he or she is really dealing. Sometimes, surprisingly, even the auction house may not know who the seller is.
Secrecy has long been central to the art world. Anonymity protects privacy, adds mystique and cuts the taint of crass commerce from such transactions.
Once that piece of art is purchased, it now becomes an asset that can be claimed to be worth the purchase price or it may be resold at a later date for presumably clean money.
As for this game, it’s vastly more likely it’s a failed investment but it could be part of a “black salary” money laundering scheme where there a a few legitimate, innocent employees making the game, and many other people who are on the payroll and earning a salary funded by illicit money which can then be claimed as the fruits of legitimate employment. It would work by the kingpin putting himself at CEO with a huge salary, his lieutenants below him at a lesser salary and so on.
Then, to continue the ruse, they release whatever game they made. Any money they make from releasing a terrible game is just a bonus. It also could go hand in hand with a tax fraud scheme. Obviously, there’s no way to know from it being bad and flopping, but that’s one idea.
Possibly. But most people would have no idea if the painting hanging in your home of “Starry Night” is the real thing, worth tens of millions, or a nice replica worth a couple hundred dollars.
Further, the secrecy of the transaction means that a government entity would have to spend time investigating who made the purchase without even knowing if the purchase was made to conceal criminal activity which many over-worked law enforcement agencies are loathe to do.
Your first paragraph is correct, but you go off the rails pretty quickly: you're describing "Hollywood Heist" art world, not real life art world.
You've also failed to describe or clarify where the dirty money gets injected to be cleaned. Do you think it's the purchaser? The gallery? There is still a money trail here, which is precisely what needs to be avoided. You are missing several steps, and a lot of collusion, because you can't just show up with suitcases full of cash, buy "One art for $1M, please", and suddenly your illegitimate revenue stream is legitimized.
My point is that art sales are predominantly used to launder money, my point is that it’s an industry that has attractive qualities to launder money and I was answering a question of another.
Here’s a few articles explaining exactly that and providing recent examples of laundering through art:
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u/mangage 27d ago
i dont think you know how money laundering works