Earlier this year, a Lebanese art collector was accused of money laundering and violating terrorism-related sanctions in a federal indictment that focused attention on the reported beneficiary of some of his activities: the militant group Hezbollah.
The collector, Nazem Ahmad, had been identified by U.S. authorities as a top financier of Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based group that the U.S. government has designated a terrorist organization. The indictment, in April, charged Mr. Ahmad with evading U.S. sanctions imposed on him in 2019, by using a network of businesses to conceal millions of dollars in transactions involving art and diamonds. Eight others were also charged.
The indictment led to headlines around the world. But less discussed has been the extent to which it detailed, with example after example, how the art market had, by the government’s accounting, played a significant role in Mr. Ahmad’s scheme.
More than a dozen galleries and artists had abetted what investigators characterized as Mr. Ahmad’s evasive tactics, the indictment asserted. Though the galleries or artists were not charged with wrongdoing, or accused of having knowingly helped Mr. Ahmad, the indictment depicted the art market as a ready vehicle for money laundering and sanctions evasion.
For example, more than a year after Mr. Ahmad had been identified as a financial resource for Hezbollah, and business with him or entities he controlled had been banned, a New York artist agreed, apparently unwittingly, to sell him artwork, according to the indictment. The government said Mr. Ahmad asked the artist, who was not named in the indictment, not to mention his name to the artist’s gallery because he preferred to remain anonymous. In 2021, the gallery, also unnamed, sold six of that artist’s works to a “Sierra Leone-based entity” described by investigators as a front for Mr. Ahmad, according to the indictment.
The Justice Department included a series of images in its indictment, including this image of a painting. The court papers said Mr. Ahmad had contacted a Chicago gallery to commission it and several artworks by an artist based in the U.S. who was not named.Credit…Department of Justice
In another instance, the indictment said, an unnamed Chicago gallery sold 21 works to a company that Mr. Ahmad had long used to buy art. The March 2022 sale came more than two years after the sanctions were imposed prohibiting him from such transactions. The shipment to a company in Lebanon was identified as containing “wooden baby cribs,” not works of art, the legal documents said.
U.S. officials have said that Mr. Ahmad used his art to convert and shelter proceeds from his diamond trading, which ultimately was a source of funding for Hezbollah.
“Since 2012, Nazem Said Ahmad has acquired over $54 million in works of art from major auction houses, galleries, and exhibitions, or even directly from artists’ studios, often concealing his beneficial ownership by having official…
2023-09-01 14:38:30
Original from www.nytimes.com
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