Cinoa, the international art and antiques dealers’ association, on Friday published an open letter, signed by seven art trade groups, calling for an international review of policy making after the US Treasury’s recent report into money laundering and terror finance deemed the majority of the art market to be low risk.
“The US Treasury Report is the latest report looking into possible links between money laundering and terrorism financing through the trade in works of art, for the purpose of advising Congress on anti-money laundering measures,” says Erika Bochereau, Cinoa’s secretary general. “What does it conclude? That the justification for urgent and wide scale measures is not there, the risks for the majority of the art market are very low and proposals to regulate the market should be delayed until the US government has dealt with the more pressing problem of shell companies and real estate."
The letter points to eight reports produced in recent years, looking into the links between the art market and terrorist financing. Five have been funded by governments: Germany’s Illicid report (2015); the European Commission reports, Deloitte (2017) and Ecorys (2019); and, in the US, The Rand Organisation Report (2020) and US Treasury Report (February 2022). It also cites three other reports—a study by King’s College, London, into Islamic State (IS) financing (2017), the World Customs Organisation (WCO) Illicit Trade Reports, and the 2020 Trade Based Money Laundering report by...
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