Technology

Fine art and race horses, ad platforms, and let's not forget high-end gambling and sports gambling.

Sheldon Adelson made billions laundering money for Chinese oligarchs through the Sands Singapore.

There's so much dirty money floating from place to place with these obvious financial VPNs.

I don't think your examples complete.

You buy art from some no name but dead artist. You buy all the art. Then you take your dirty money which you can't put on the open market, and give it to somebody who then uses clean money to buy your artwork on the public market. For a fee of course.

So now you have an argument that this artist is appreciating after their death, you've sold a bunch of artwork for a large profit, minus taxes, minus the cleaning fee from the buyer.

That would complete the money laundering cycle.

But that's annoying, cuz you're basically using somebody else to clean the money for you, it's just the transfer back to you that the art facilitates.

I think bribes are where art really shines. Bribes are different than money laundering, because the money is ostensibly clean anyway, it's just giving it to you for a reason that's difficult. So the art is the excuse that enables the bribery

Isn’t most art for money laundering.

Certainly not. Millions of people create art every day for various reasons and various success. Heck, artists are generally known to be on the poorer end of society exactly because they often care for the art even if it doesn't sell well. That is the case even for some of the now most famous artists in history. Quite a few of them died dirt poor while their pieces now sell for millions.

Is some art in certain circles used for money laundering? Most likely, but that's definitely not "most" but at best mabye a few thousand pieces which are dwarfed by the billions of art pieces around today.