Art  Crime, Stefan Koldehoff
Art  Crime, Stefan Koldehoff
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Art & Crime
The fight against looters, forgers, and fraudsters in the high-stakes art world

Author: Stefan Koldehoff, Tobias Timm, Paul David Young

Narrator: Graham Winton

Unabridged: 10 hr 41 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 01/25/2022

Categories: Nonfiction, Art, True Crime


Synopsis

A thrilling, eye-popping look at true crime in the billion-dollar art world.

The art world is one of the most secretive of global businesses, and the list of its crimes runs long and deep. Today, with prices in the hundreds of millions for individual artworks, and billionaires' collections among the most conspicuous and liquid of their assets, crime is more rampant than ever in this largely unregulated universe. Increased prices and globalization have introduced new levels of fraud and malfeasance into the art world—everything from "artnapping," in which an artwork is held hostage and only returned for a ransom, to forgery and tax fraud.

However, the extent of the economic and cultural damage that results from criminality in the global art scene rarely comes to light. The stories of high-stakes, brazen art crimes told by art experts Stefan Koldehoff and Tobias Timm are by turns thrilling, disturbing, and unbelievable (the imagination for using art to commit crimes seems boundless). The authors also provide a well-founded analysis of what needs to change in the art market and at museums.

From the authors of False Pictures, Real Money (about the Beltracchi art forgery case), Art & Crime includes a chapter on art owned by Donald Trump. It is a thoroughly researched, explosive, and highly topical book that uncovers the extraordinary and multifarious thefts of art and cultural objects around the world.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Niklas on October 08, 2021

This is the kind of book that shows the whole picture by going into tales, one after the other. The tales weave a picture that shows what a complete racket the international art market is. Over fifty billion USD annually flow through the international art market. Paintings by people like Jean-Michel......more

Goodreads review by Mehtap on January 10, 2023

Verbrechen innerhalb der Kunstszene. Das ist ein Buch, was einem Einblicke in eine Welt gibt, die uns Sterblichen verwehrt bleibt. Spektakuläre Fälle werden in diesem Buch beschrieben. Von dem Klau des Maple Leaf Goldstück in Berlin oder der Mona Lisa. Wie sind die kriminellen Strukturen in der Kunst......more

Goodreads review by Christina on May 11, 2020

Kunstfälschung, Kunstraub, Geldwäsche, Steuerbetrug, Absicherung für Drogen- & Waffengeschäfte, Altersvorsorge für Diktatoren & ihre Familien, Finanzierung von Terrorismus, Handel mit Raubkunst, vom organisierten Verbrechen organisierte Raubgräberei & Handel mit illegal beschafften Objekten, Handel......more

Goodreads review by Virginia on March 14, 2022

With art works now selling for millions of dollars, crime is growing increasingly rampant, from artifacts looted from archaeological sites, to forgeries, to stolen items to money laundering and tax evasion. The authors give a careful analysis of the rampant abuses that are occurring and why regulati......more

Goodreads review by Chris on December 10, 2024

I love reading in this rather small genre of art crime, forgery, etc. I have no idea how I didn't discover this book until now, but I am very glad I did. Written from a European perspective and translated into English, it is refreshing to not get an American-centric point of view. The authors concen......more