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“What about an art historian from Oxford?”
Lambert hesitated, then nodded slowly. “Oui, Monsieur Allon.”
“Why was she targeted?”
“Untitled portrait of a woman by Pablo Picasso.”
“The painting was a threat to the firm?”
“Not just the firm. The clients, the partners, the banks...” Lambert shrugged. “Everything.”
34
Haute-Corse
It was Ian Harris, a minor collector with a taste for Dutch portraiture, who originally hit upon the idea. He referred to it, innocuously, as “the art strategy.” Not art as an investment, but art as a means of laundering and concealing wealth and, more important, of conveying wealth from its country of origin to offshore tax havens. It was made possible by the art world’s long-standing tradition of secrecy. Nearly $70 billion worth of paintings and other objets d’art changed hands each year, most of it privately. Buyers typically did not know the identity of sellers, sellers did not know the identity of buyers, and government regulators and tax collectors knew almost nothing at all.
But exploiting that inherent vulnerability, explained Philippe Lambert, required a facility like the Geneva Freeport, which permitted customers to store their art in climate-controlled vaults rented by anonymous shell companies. Under the lax rules of the Freeport, the shell company was not required to disclose its beneficial owner. He could purchase a $200 million painting at auction in New York or London and avoid all taxation merely by shipping it to the Freeport. Furthermore, the secret owner of the shell company could sell his $200 million painting at a profit within the confines of the Freeport with no tax implications.
“The Freeport always had a shady side to it,” said Lambert. “But Harris Weber & Company turned the place into a six-hundred-thousand-square-foot washing machine.”
“What was Galerie Ricard’s role?” asked Gabriel.
“Ricard was a washerwoman, nothing more. He changed the loads, pushed the buttons, and got a tiny slice of each transaction. But there were always fights about money. He believed he was underappreciated and underpaid.”
For all its ingenuity, Lambert went on, the art strategy was quite simple. All it required were two anonymous limited liability shell corporations in the British Virgin Islands, which Harris Weber created for a modest fee. The client would then purchase a painting—at auction or privately through the auspices of a gallery—and immediately ship it to the Freeport, where it would be placed in a vault rented by one of the shell companies. The client would then sell the painting, sometimes in a matter of days or even hours, at Galerie Ricard, under conditions of strict secrecy. The proceeds of the sale would then be funneled into the second anonymous shell company, with the money deposited at one of Harris Weber’s partner Caribbean banks. There it would remain invisible to the tax authorities of the client’s host country. He was free to invest the money in equities or commodities—tax free, of course—or he could use it to acquire valuable assets such as private jets, yachts, and luxury homes.
As a result of the scheme, several hundred billion dollars’ worth of private wealth was funneled offshore and buried beneath layers of corporate shells and trusts. Harris Weber & Company and its stable of ethically challenged lawyers received hundreds of millions in legal fees and commissions. Still not satisfied with their earnings, they decided to further leverage the art strategy by going into the art business themselves. With a portion of their profits, they acquired a small but extremely valuable collection of high-priced paintings, which they used primarily for purposes of money laundering—sham “sales” that generated hundreds of millions’ worth of additional commissions and profits. They stored the paintings in the Geneva Freeport under the supervision of Galerie Ricard and managed the collection through an anonymous limited liability shell company based in the British Virgin Islands.
“OOC Group, Limited?”
“Oui, Monsieur Allon. It stands for Oil on Canvas. But there were several other shell companies and layered trusts standing between OOC Group and Harris Weber. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to piece together the puzzle.”
Unless, of course, a problem arose with one of the paintings in the firm’s inventory—a problem that would allow a plaintiff in a legal proceeding to penetrate Harris Weber’s records through the process of discovery. This was the situation confronting the firm when Trevor Robinson woke Lambert from a sound sleep early one morning in mid-December. Robinson was on the slopes of Chamonix. Lambert was at the villa on Virgin Gorda.
“And the problem?”
“The Picasso,” said Lambert. “Harris Weber acquired it ten years ago in a private sale brokered by Christie’s in London. Professor Blake had somehow uncovered details of the transaction, including the name of the buyer.”
“Oil on Canvas Group, Limited?”
Lambert nodded.
“But how did Trevor Robinson know what she had discovered?”
“He didn’t go into the details. He just wanted me to find out whether the professor really had the goods. I hacked into her phone and computer and grabbed everything, including her version of the painting’s provenance. It listed the name of the original owner as well as the name of the rightful heir.”
“Dr. Emanuel Cohen.”
“Oui, Monsieur Allon.”
Lambert also discovered the name of the man with whom Professor Blake was having an extramarital affair: Leonard Bradley, a wealthy trader and art aficionado who lived with his wife and three children in a clifftop home near Land’s End in Cornwall. Lambert forwarded the information to Trevor Robinson, along with hundreds of intimate text messages and geolocation data pinpointing the likely location of their trysts. It was Lambert’s assumption that the former British spy would use the damaging information merely to pressure Professor Blake into amending the findings of her inquiry. Trevor Robinson, however, had other ideas.
“He wanted me to send Professor Blake a text message from Bradley’s number.”
“And the nature of the message?”
“Bradley needed to discuss a matter of the utmost urgency.”
