Shouldn't Art and Antiquities Sellers Be Subject to Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorist Financing Laws?

Banks, casinos, and high value asset sellers are subject to federal laws that flush out terrorist financiers and money launderers. So why aren't art and antiquities sellers subject to the same statutes?

Terrorists and criminals launder money by hiding dirty cash under the covers of seemingly legitimate business transactions. Money raised from illegal drug or weapons sales, for example, can be washed by purchasing luxury cars, yachts, mansions, or jewels. These newly bought assets either can be sold for cash or used as collateral to secure bank loans, thereby cleaning the cash of its sinful stains.

Dealers and auction houses sell art and antiquities that include high value works worth thousands or millions of dollars. At least one auction house issues loans, according to a report by Bloomberg titled An Auction House Learns the Art of Shadow Banking.

But while art and antiquities sellers are required to file Form 8300like any other business that accepts a $10,000+ payment from a client or customer, they are not subject to the same rigid requirements of anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing laws like the Bank Secrecy Act, the Foreign Assets Control Regulations, the Financial Record Keeping and Reporting of Currency and Foreign Transactions law, and the USA PATRIOT Act.

Yet dealers in precious metals, stones, or jewels; sellers of automobile, planes, and boats; real estate professionals; pawnbrokers; travel agencies; and casinos are all regulated the same way that banks, credit unions, securities and commodities brokers, and credit card systems are. Federal law classifies these industries as “financial institutions” under 31 U.S.C. § 5312 and 31 CFR 1010.100(t). Noticeably absent from this list, however, are businesses operating in the cultural property marketplace.

Dealers and auction houses in this marketplace clearly have what the Bank Secrecy Act is looking for, namely “certain reports or records where they have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory investigations or proceedings, or in the conduct of intelligence or counterintelligence activities, including analysis, to protect against international terrorism.” 31 U.S. Code § 5311. That is why federal law should require art and antiquities sellers to file Suspicious Activity Reports with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

It's time for the Secretary of the Treasury, under authority of 31 U.S.C. § 5312(a)(2)(Z),to designate art and antiquities dealers and auction houses as businesses “whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters,” and therefore subject to the anti-money laundering/ counter-terrorist financing requirements of federal law. This is one of six law enforcement recommendations CHL has prposed to combat transnational cultural heritage trafficking.

Photo credit: Manuel De La Pena / freeimages.com

Text and original photos copyrighted by Cultural Heritage Lawyer, a blog commenting on matters of cultural property law, art law, cultural heritage policy, antiquities trafficking, and museum risk management. Blog url: culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com. Any unauthorized reproduction or retransmission of any blog post without the express written consent of CHL is prohibited. CHL is a service of Red Arch Cultural Heritage Law & Policy Research, Inc.

Prosecutors, Detector Dogs, and Laws: 6 Law Enforcement Recommendations to Combat Transnational Cultural Heritage Trafficking

Transnational cultural heritage trafficking thrives on an opaque art and antiquities market. Attractive features of this marketplace include discretion surrounding business transactions, easy creation of shell corporations, the high probability that smuggled imports won't be detected, clever mechanisms to move money, infrequent prosecutions of traffickers, and limited regulatory resources.

Police and prosecutors need additional tools to build capacity, spot contraband, and capture the criminals. Here are six recommendations.

#1  Specialized federal prosecutors

At least two federal prosecutors should be assigned to focus exclusively on cultural heritage trafficking. One might be placed in the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington , DC and another in the criminal division at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the heart of America's art and antiquities marketplace.

Only federal prosecutors have authority to prosecute federal felony crimes like importing goods illegally or falsifying import paperwork, crimes which are typically part of antiquities trafficking.

While there have been several commendable cases where federal authorities have seized contraband antiquities and sent them back to their country of origin--particularly in New York City--few have resulted in criminal convictions. This "seize and send" policy must mature into an "investigate and indict" objective, where authorities hold individuals accountable through convictions and criminal penalties. Otherwise thieves, smugglers, fences, and their accomplices will continue to experience no specific deterrence or general deterrence that the criminal justice system uses to curb criminal conduct.

Already the seizure and forfeiture of cultural property in federal court depends on a U.S. Attorney proving that a criminal statute was violated. So it only makes sense that the individuals who commit the underlying crime should be prosecuted too. Once cultural objects are sent away to their country of origin through the seizure and forfeiture process, there is no case left to prosecute because the primary evidence has been sent away, an outcome that occurred even in a case where investigators suspected terrorist financing.

Without federal prosecutions, U.S. attorneys fail to develop the trial or investigative skills needed to uncover and describe to juries criminal networks and their subtle money trails, clandestine trafficking routes, and shell corporations used to move contraband cultural property into the American marketplace.

Specialized prosecutors would be expected to work together to support Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI, which in turn would sharpen prosecutors' white collar crime skills to help guide investigations, craft search warrants, present cases before grand juries, and try cases in the courtroom. The art and cultural property theft cases successfully handled by the team of former Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Goldman and former FBI Special Agent Robert Wittman serve as an illustration. Roger Atwood's Stealing History tells some of their stories.

#2  State prosecutions

Matthew Bogdanos, a prosecutor at the New York County District Attorney’s Office, is pioneering efforts to apply state law to cultural property crimes. One example is the conviction he secured in the case of People v. Aaron Freedman. Manager of Subhash Kapoor's Art of the Past gallery in New York City, Freedman pleaded guilty in 2013 to felony conspiracy and five counts of felony criminal possession of stolen property. But we need more state prosecutors focused on these types of crimes.

While federal law has jurisdiction over illegal import cases, state law is best used to prosecute sellers of stolen cultural property. Since 2005, CHL’s author has discussed how district and county attorneys--who generally have lots of experience prosecuting property cases--may rely on state receiving stolen property statutes to target culpable sellers of cultural heritage objects.

Every state has enacted a receiving stolen property statute in some form, and these laws generally prohibit a person from selling, transporting, or receiving stolen property. State receiving stolen property laws are fundamentally similar to the National Stolen Property Act (NSPA), the federal statute that outlaws different forms of theft. But many states' laws give distinct advantages to district and county attorneys, allowing them to more easily hold dirty dealers accountable.

For example, over two-thirds of state laws require lower mental states. Where the NSPA requires proof that a criminal defendant had full knowledge that a cultural object was stolen, most state laws only require proof that the offender should know, had reason to know, had reason to believe, or simply believed that the property in a dealer's possession or offered for sale was stolen or probably stolen. A federal prosecutor would need to prove that a dealer actually knew an object was stolen, but a state prosecutor may simply need to prove that a dealer had reason to believe that an artifact had been stolen, which is a much lower legal burden.

More importantly, almost one quarter of the states have a built-in legal assumption that a dealer in goods is presumed to know an object was stolen when (a) the dealer did not reasonably gather information about whether the good was lawfully sold or delivered to the dealer, (b) acquired the good far below reasonable value, or (c) purchased or sold the good outside the regular course of business. New York Penal Law § 165.55(2) is an apt example: "A … person in the business of buying, selling or otherwise dealing in property who possesses stolen property is presumed to know that such property was stolen if he obtained it without having ascertained by reasonable inquiry that the person from whom he obtained it had a legal right to possess it."

In New York, like in other states, it is no defense that somebody else stole the property or that the property was stolen from out of state. And states, for the most part, don't require the stolen property to be valued at $5,000 or more, in contrast to the federal NSPA statute.

All these legal advantages give district and county prosecutors an edge to hold antiquities and other cultural property dealers accountable when a crime has been committed.

#3  Detector dog research

Detector dogs that could sniff out smuggled cultural heritage objects, particularly archaeological artifacts, certainly would help customs agents at U.S. ports of entry.

Huge numbers of commodities pore across America's borders each day. For customs agents to spot illicit art, antiquities, and collectibles arriving by cargo ship or air freight among the countless illegal drugs, guns, bird feathers, mangos, jellyfishes, seeds, counterfeit NFL jerseys, and the like can be overwhelming. Remember too that their highest priority is intercepting radiological, biological, and other explosives before they can cripple the homeland. That is why cultural property detector dogs could prove useful.

Sniffer dogs already have demonstrated their worth to U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents by detecting pests and illegal agricultural goods. That is why research must be undertaken to see if detector dogs can be trained to identify smuggled antiquities and other cultural objects. Preliminary inquiries by Red Arch in consultation with relevant experts suggests that such a research project is worthwhile.

#4  Recordkeeping laws

When a healthy trade becomes a black market temptation for stolen and smuggled cultural heritage, new recordkeeping laws could assist prosecutors and police. These laws would require dealers, galleries, and auction houses to record the identities and transactions of suppliers and buyers of cultural property while upholding legitimate business privacy interests. See the detailed proposal here.

When pawn shops became magnets for stolen property, states overwhelmingly passed recordkeeping laws to help police as well as crime victims. States similarly passed scrap metal recordkeeping rules when stolen copper and aluminum flooded the marketplace. For banks, the USA Patriot Act enacted another kind of recordkeeping rule called Know Your Customer, which helps identify money launderers, terrorist financiers, and foreign corrupt practices within the financial industry. In like manner, law enforcement should have access to business records that would help uncover perpetrators of cultural heritage trafficking.

#5  Enhanced AML/CTF statutes

To zero in on untraceable shell corporations, laundered money, and terror financing associated with cultural heritage trafficking, existing anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing laws (AML/CTF) need to be enhanced to include the cultural property market.

Current statutes are designed to root out criminal exploitation of highly susceptible commercial and financial industries. Yet the marketplace for art, antiquities, fossils, ancient coins, and other cultural property remain absent from this list.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the seminal inter-governmental organization focused on AML/CTF, specifically identifies illicit trafficking of cultural goods, counterfeiting of antiquities, and the illegal trade of antiquities as facilitators of money laundering and terrorist financing. Moreover, the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Office of Anti-Crime Programs specifically refers to "art dealers" when  discussing AML/CTF  objectives. The Basel Art Trade Guidelines also point out, "Far more serious than shady dealings in a legal gray area, the sector’s shadow economy encompasses issues ranging from looted art, professional counterfeiting and fake certificates to the use of art sales for the purpose of money laundering.

Pawnbrokers, car dealers, dealers in precious metals and jewels, travel agents, and other NBFI's (non-bank financial institutions) are identified by AML/CTF laws as industries where criminals are known to clandestinely move large amounts of money or discreetly convert cash into high value goods. But the art and antiquities marketplace is not included in the Bank Secrecy Act, the USA Patriot Act, and other AML/CTF statutes. This needs to change.

An additional legislative change is needed to expose cultural property smugglers who set up a myriad shell corporations to discreetly hide their business operations. They create untraceable companies that only exist on paper and whose officers remain unknown, or they use layers of shell corporations to transfer cultural contraband through a maze of paper trails to throw off investigators.

One proposal currently wending its way through the U.S. Senate seeks a solution. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act (S. 1269 and similar companion bills) calls on the Department of Homeland Security to assign a single registration number to an importers of record. That way importers can't set up multiple import companies to hide their identities or their trade activities.

[Sidebar: Setting up a separate, companion corporation is not per se illegal. But hiding illegal business transactions in a shell corporation is not. Cases involving "Bactrian Global Enterprises" and Nimbus Import Export are two examples where separate corporations were maintained. Were they for legitimate reasons or not?]

#6  Adding the cultural property market to attorneys’ general consumer protection watch lists

Cultural property crimes impact consumers who may pay substantial amounts for ancient Greek vases, Egyptian sculptures, and similar cultural heritage objects. The objects might be looted, stolen, or smuggled, or they might be fakes. Because cultural property markets contain a number of recently surfaced artifacts without documented collecting histories, or with thinly veiled collecting histories, or with entirely false histories, consumers risk purchasing illegal or fake heritage objects. That is why state attorneys general should instruct their consumer protection divisions to be watchful.

Attorneys general typically enforce laws that protect consumers against deceptive, unfair, unconscionable, and/or unlawful business practices, and they are endowed with civil and criminal legal tools to investigate illegal misconduct by a particular company or by an entire industry.

New York General Business Law § 349(a) is one statutory example that proclaims, "Deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any business, trade or commerce or in the furnishing of any service in this state are hereby declared unlawful." Executive Law § 63(12) gives the Empire State's attorney general power to investigate and issue subpoenas, even in cases where there was no actual intent to deceive. Where representations or omissions may reasonably have misled consumers, the NY attorney general can bring an action on behalf of the affected consumers.

An example of an industry-wide consumer protection investigation is NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's recent probe into abuses found within the concert and sports ticket industry. Other investigations might focus instead on a single business. Oftentimes, state attorneys general will partner each other and/or with federal consumer protection agencies to confront systematic problems that are widespread.

So when the National Association of Attorneys General meets this month, its Consumer Protection Committee should add the cultural property market to its watch list.

Photo credits: Pixabay / David Mark, Freeimages.com / Marc Dorsett, Freeimages.com / Joe Zlomec, Freeimages.com / dgood007, Freeimages.com / Bob Smith, Pixabay / Edward Lich

Text copyrighted 2016 by Cultural Heritage Lawyer, a blog commenting on matters of cultural property law, art law, cultural heritage policy, antiquities trafficking, and museum risk management. Blog url: culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com. Any unauthorized reproduction or retransmission of any blog post without the express written consent of CHL is prohibited. CHL is a service of Red Arch Cultural Heritage Law & Policy Research, Inc.

A Healthy Trade, A Black Market Temptation: Latest Figures Show U.S. Leadership in Art and Antiquities Exports and Imports

The latest trade figures show that the United States is the leading exporter and importer of fine art, antiquities, and other cultural goods. Dealers and consumers are thriving in this robust marketplace where billions of dollars are exchanged annually. Yet the market remains susceptible to criminal penetration.

American international trade in fine art and antiquities is very large. UN Comtrade and U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) data reveal that America imported over $9 billion in art, collectors’ pieces, and antiques last year. It also exported the same types of goods in 2013—classified by Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) 97—in an amount valued at $7.7 billion, crowning America as the global leader in both exports and imports of art and cultural heritage material by monetary value.

To put these cash amounts into perspective, $9 billion could purchase a fleet of 35 Boeing 747 aircraft or buy 530,000 Ford Focus automobiles.

The U.S. was also a top country in 2013 for imports and exports of HTS 9705 goods, an important subcategory of HTS 97 that includes collections and collectors' pieces of zoological, botanical, mineralogical, anatomical, historical, archeological, paleontological, ethnographic or numismatic interest. America was the second highest importer by value, bringing in roughly $263 million worth of HTS 9705 commodities from around the world. The U.S., in turn, exported nearly $192 million in HTS 9705 material, taking the third-place spot among nations.

This large and healthy trade in art and antiquities can be tempting to the black market because money laundering, smuggling, and fencing stolen objects are more easily disguised when smaller drops of dirty cash and contraband get lost in a vast ocean of legal commerce. In fact, the 2012 Basel Art Trade Guidelines cautioned that the market “faces a higher risk of exposure to dubious trade practices ... due to the volume of illegal or legally questionable transactions, which is noticeably higher in this sector than in other globally active markets.”

Organized crime can over-value or under-value invoices to disguise money transfers, a practice called trade based money laundering. Smugglers can create shell import and export companies to hide the origins and transfers of illegally trafficked cultural goods. And many other techniques can be used to hide criminal conduct that piggybacks on legitimate trade. Such methods may explain why $6.8 billion in art and antiquities shipped between the United Kingdom and the United States over the last five years remains missing.

To peel away the black market that camouflages crimes of trafficking, money laundering, and possibly terrorist financing requires rigorous initiatives that will shore up vulnerabilities existing within the broader white market. Industry transparency and due diligence are critical elements to any defense. Moreover, intensified law enforcement efforts directed at investigating and prosecuting cultural heritage trafficking and money laundering must be supported.

Photo credit: Jon Syverson

Copyright note: Although the data presented here is sourced from publicly available information, it has been carefully selected, coordinated, arranged, and analyzed so that it is subject to copyright as a compilation by CHL. The publication, retransmission, or broadcast of this compiled data is strictly prohibited without CHL's express consent.

By Rick St. Hilaire Text copyrighted 2014 by Cultural Heritage Lawyer. Blog url: culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com. Any unauthorized reproduction or retransmission of this post without the express written consent of CHL is prohibited.

$2 Billion Missing in U.S.-U.K. Art and Antiquities Trade. Trade Based Money Laundering or Some Other Explanation?

It stands to reason that the declared export price of goods should match the declared import price of the same goods. So questions certainly arise when customs values reported by an exporting country do not add up to the customs values for the exact goods published by the importing nation. And that is what is happening with the United Kingdom and the United States in the art and antiquities trade.

The trade in works of art, collectors pieces, and antiques exported from the U.K and imported into the U.S. demands scrutiny. These cultural goods are classified by Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) commodity code 97, which specifically covers paintings, drawings, engravings, prints, lithographs, sculptures, statuary, and stamps. HTS 97 also includes collectors' pieces and collections of zoological, botanical, mineralogical, anatomical, historical, archaeological, and paleontological materials. Numismatics are covered as well, and so too are antiques over 100 years old.

The U.K. was the number one source of archaeological, historical, and ethnological material imported into the United States in 2013 (HTS 9705.00.0070 goods). In the broader art and antiquities markets, the U.K. ranked number two--second only to France--in the value of all HTS 97 goods imported by the U.S. last year.

According to data generated by HM Revenue and Customs, the U.K. reported a declared value of exports to the U.S. in 2013 of £2,202,630,107 worth of HTS 97 art, collectors pieces, and antiques. That total translates to $3,700,640,000 as measured by the currency exchange rate effective on April 22, 2014.

In contrast, the 2013 data compiled from the U.S. International Trade Commission show that America imported from the U.K. only $1,675,476,108 worth of HTS 97 goods. The difference between the total declared value of HTS 97 goods exported from the U.K., and the total declared value of HTS 97 goods imported for consumption into the U.S. during 2013 amounts to $2,025,163,892.*

Because the published values do not match by over $2 billion, they should be analyzed carefully by trade experts to find out why this money is missing from the trade data. Commercial lawyers and customs attorneys, for example, should examine how the value differences can be justified, if at all, by changing currency valuations or other relevant factors.

[UPDATE May 5, 2014: The trade data for a five year period, from 2009-2013, is examined in CHL's post here.]

The data need to be studied by law enforcement too, particularly since customs values for U.S. imports are not determined by government record keepers; they are amounts supplied by importers, which are then written on customs entry forms. As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement correctly observes, "Global trade is frequently used by criminal organizations to move value around the world through the complex and sometimes confusing documentation that is frequently associated with legitimate trade transactions."

Customs authorities particularly should probe whether there may be evidence of trade based money laundering (TBML). TBML permits criminal networks to earn and transfer money by hiding and remitting profits within the stream of the legal marketplace. One TBML technique is to import goods into the U.S. at an undervalued amount.

The $2 billion difference between HTS 97 goods exported from the U.K. and imported into the U.S. warrants scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic, particularly because the legitimate--but opaque--art and antiquities markets are susceptible to terrorist financing risks, money laundering, and black market operations. The preservation of both cultural heritage and the legal marketplace demands that answers be found to explain the $2 billion missing from the U.S.-U.K. art and antiquities trade.

*Trade data for HTS 97 goods is examined over a five year period in a blog post dated May 5, 2014. The 2013 U.S. data used for the five year comparison looks at general import values rather than values for imports for consumption, which is used in this blog post.  Also, the currency conversion rates used in the five year data in the May 5 blog post are all from December 31 for each year, respectively, from 2009 through 2013. The currency conversion rate used to convert GBP to USD in the April 22, 2014 blog post here is the rate published on April 22, 2014. This information accounts for any differences in values reported here versus the values reported in the May 5 blog post.

Photo credit: Darren Deans

By Rick St. Hilaire Text copyrighted 2010-2014 by Ricardo A. St. Hilaire, Attorney & Counselor at Law, PLLC. Blog url: culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com. Any unauthorized reproduction or retransmission of this post is prohibited. CONTACT INFORMATION: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com

Money Laundering and the Trade in Cultural Property: Taking a Fresh Look at Federal AML/CTFs

Mark Vlasic, former head of the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative, noted in Thursday's Huffington Post blog post titled "An Allied Effort to Save History" that

after the post-9/11 crackdowns on terrorist financing, law enforcement has reported a marked increase in antiquities and other artworks being used to launder money (in fact, one agent told us that money laundering cases make up the bulk of their art investigations, not repatriations).

But anti-money laundering as well as counter-terrorism financing laws (AML/CTF) are often limited when it comes to the trade in cultural property. That is because the cultural property markets in art, antiquities, fossils, etc. are not explicitly covered by AML/CTFs.

The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) describes money laundering this way:

Money laundering is the process of making illegally-gained proceeds (i.e. "dirty money") appear legal (i.e. "clean"). Typically, it involves three steps: placement, layering and integration. First, the illegitimate funds are furtively introduced into the legitimate financial system. Then, the money is moved around to create confusion, sometimes by wiring or transferring through numerous accounts. Finally, it is integrated into the financial system through additional transactions until the "dirty money" appears "clean."

With respect to the art market, a 2012 Basel Institute on Governance report titled Basel Art Trade Guidelines, observes:

In comparison with other trade sectors, the art market faces a higher risk of exposure to dubious trade practices. This is due to the volume of illegal or legally questionable transactions, which is noticeably higher in this sector than in other globally active markets. Far more serious than shady dealings in a legal grey area, the sector’s shadow economy encompasses issues ranging from looted art, professional counterfeiting and fake certificates to the use of art sales for the purpose of money laundering.

There are several federal AML/CTF laws and regulations, the main ones being the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) and the USA PATRIOT Act. They are tailored to detect international money laundering and terrorist financing in the banking, financial, and investment sectors by establishing compliance programs designed to report suspicious activities, verify customer identities (so-called Know Your Customer programs), disclose high value transactions, and more. Banks, casinos, and securities brokers are among the industries covered by the BSA. The USA PATRIOT Act, meanwhile, covers a wide swath of fields beyond banking, financial services, and investment institutions. They include travel agencies; pawnbrokers; dealers in precious metals, stones or jewels; and more. Explicitly absent from the list are dealers in art, antiquities, and other cultural materials.

Some countries' AML/CTF laws cover art, antiquities, and/or antiques dealers directly. Argentina, Brazil, Japan, and Lithuania are a few. (A thumbnail sketch of AML/CTF laws can be found here and here.) While Internal Revenue Code 6050I and 31 USC § 5331 direct business operators in the U.S.--including sellers of cultural objects--to document sales transactions over $10,000 on IRS Form 8300, the major AML/CTF laws, once again, do not explicitly mention dealers in art, antiquities, and other cultural materials.

Yet the U.S. Department of State's INL Office of Anti-Crime Programs specifically cites "art dealers" when referencing AML/CTF goals. By way of background, the U.S. is a member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an inter-governmental body that "set[s] standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system." FATF identifies illicit trafficking of cultural goods, counterfeiting of antiquities, and the illegal trade of antiquities as facilitators of money laundering and terrorist financing in a 2013 report. With regard to FATF, the State Department declares on its web site that one of its objective is to help countries

implement the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, which mainly address: (a) the types of AML/CTF laws and regulations a country should have; (b) the agencies a country should establish (financial intelligence units (IUs), regulatory agencies, specialized law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities); (c) the reporting regime and the entities within and outside of the financial sector that should be obliged to file reports (e.g., banks, money remitters, exchange houses, securities brokers, mutual funds, insurance companies, casinos, lawyers, accountants, realtors, art dealers, etc); and (d) the sharing of non-evidentiary information via the FIU and evidentiary information via MLATs and MLAAs to generate cooperation with other countries to ensure conviction of launderers. (Emphasis added).

Spotlighting black market antiquities with record-keeping laws has already been proposed by CHL. But identifying and targeting both money laundering and terror financing that is entangled within the legitimate cultural property trade should also involve a fresh look at federal AML/CTFs, and maybe some changes.

Photo credit: Levy Choi

This post is researched, written, and published on the blog Cultural Heritage Lawyer Rick St. Hilaire at culturalheritagelawyer.blogspot.com. Text copyrighted 2010-2014 by Ricardo A. St. Hilaire, Attorney & Counselor at Law, PLLC. Any unauthorized reproduction or retransmission of this post is prohibited.  CONTACT INFORMATION: www.culturalheritagelawyer.com