Criminal Planet (2021) s01e04 Episode Script
The Art World's Biggest Feud
-International organized
crime has no natural predator.
-[ Shouts indistinctly ] -Crime
syndicates are expanding
and forging alliances
across the globe.
-[ Speaking in
foreign language ]
-As law enforcements
struggle to stop them,
up to 5% of the global
economy is now in criminal hands.
I'm Paul Radu, and
for the past 20 years
I have investigated
international organized crime
in the tune of $400 billion,
and this is a very, very small
slice of what's really going on.
-I think there are some
people. Let's go, let's go.
-In this series, I'm working
with a team of reporters
around the world
-Are you angry with yourself
for being part of this?
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-to discover how a
generation of international gangs
are redrawing the criminal map.
-When investigating
the criminal underworld,
you wouldn't expect
to start your journey
somewhere like this.
But I'm meeting Rob
Sheffield, the son of a baron,
to get an insider's view on
how the art world's been hit
by alleged multi-million
pound frauds.
Very impressive.
-Welcome, Syd. Welcome
to North Yorkshire.
-God, it's huge.
-Yeah.
-What's this?
-This is Michele
Abeles, this is great.
She's made it quite sculptural.
Neon light, and you can
see there's a man penis,
and it's just like,
it's also sort of riffing off on
Instagram and the social
-Yeah, there's a verified tick.
-Yeah.
Another work. Yuri Pattison.
I've got to turn this on,
actually. It's got a sound.
[ Soft mechanical whirring ]
-Oh, I see.
-Yeah.
-Why have you put it here?
-I'm running out of space.
-[ Laughs ]
Rob worked in the auction
house Christie's for five years
when a financial boom hit
the contemporary art world.
He has a unique view on
how an industry now worth
$64 billion a year
is attracting a new
type of criminal.
So what was it like working
during the boom
of the art market?
-It was like a football team
that just kept on winning,
but everyone was winning.
Every football team was winning
in the entire Premier League.
It was just a huge party with
the richest people in the world.
-A lot of drugs?
-Yeah, there was plenty
of drugs, plenty of booze,
and huge sums of
cash being exchanged.
It had this intense mad
energy, like almost fever pitch,
and I think everyone in some
way kind of lost their heads,
including myself.
And it just, for
me, drifted away
from what art should
be and can be about,
and it became this sort of
circus of wealth and power
and greed and status.
-Is there a lot of ego
involved then, in the art world?
-Huge. I used to call a lot
of my friends "the art bros."
And it was just like
cocksure, very arrogant.
I feel that culture has
obviously opened a door
to a criminal mind-set.
It's too easy for people
to break the rules,
because there aren't
any rules to break.
That's exactly why
we're getting all these,
these instances like these
huge legal cases now.
-The art world has been hit
by a new breed of
opportunist criminal,
and there is one who sent
shock waves through the industry.
33-year-old jet-setting art bro
Inigo Philbrick was
arrested in 2020
for conning clients and
friends out of over $20 million,
before disappearing
off the face of the earth.
His audacious alleged scams
include selling the same share
in a work of art to
multiple unwitting clients,
and securing million
pound loans using art works
he didn't own as collateral.
-If you look at Inigo Philbrick,
he's not the cause
of the disease,
but he is a symptom
of the disease.
Someone who came in very young,
saw there was quick
money to be made,
found it irresistible,
got in over his head.
Dishonesty is rife
within the industry.
-Rob saw Inigo's meteoric rise.
Starting as an intern,
within eight years
Inigo owned galleries
in London and Miami,
and was spending millions in
the contemporary art market.
How do you know Inigo Philbrick?
-Straight in there, are we?
[ Laughter ]
When you have an
auction, like all the big dogs
are at the front,
and Inigo was like,
within a couple of years,
a couple of rows back.
And then everyone
was a bit like,
"Who is this guy, you know?"
Also his paddle was going up,
you know, he was doing deals.
The money was there.
It was strange, but no
one really questioned it.
He had this swagger.
Never took me seriously.
Definitely arrogant
is a word I would use,
and I felt really
vindicated actually when
Inigo got exposed,
because I was like,
"Well, yeah, actually, you know,
you were laughing at me then,
but I'm the one laughing now."
And I feel like, you
know, fuck, so maybe
I was right to be a bit
naive and a bit idealistic,
and that's what the
art world's about,
so, you know, they
can fucking jog on.
-[ Laughs ]
How many Inigos do
you think there are?
-Fucking loads.
It's a shady place.
Just imagine a world
where there is no regulation,
and if you just bend a rule here
you can make a
little bit more money.
And the worst thing that happens
to you, you might lose a client.
It's a perfect
equation for corruption.
-That corruption has hit the
historic home of the art world,
London's Mayfair.
This was Inigo's
stomping ground.
I'm on my way to
meet Chris Marinello,
who's been dubbed the
Sherlock Holmes of the art world.
He started a company called
Art Recovery International,
and they retrieve
lost and looted art
works from around the world.
Why is the art world so
prone to financial crime?
-It's money.
I mean, if you look around
you, it's all about the money.
it's about the Lamborghinis
and the Ferraris and the £200,000
watches and the incredible
Andy Warhol paintings,
and they read about it and
they hear about the money
that's being generated from
the sale of these objects,
and they call want a part of it.
Mr. Philbrick was not the
first one to do this type of fraud.
What Inigo's fame, infamy has
come from is the Instagram age,
where art advisors
are using social media
to buy and sell works of art.
-So would you say that
Instagram and social media
had helped facilitate crime?
-Oh, absolutely.
Inigo's been traveling
to exotic locations,
dealing in -- in some
very high-end works of art.
The fabulous parties,
fabulous events, private jets,
and all of this is done
to create some sort of
an image of infallibility, so
that people feel comfortable
in spending $50 or
$70 million with him.
-Do you think Inigo's
behavior is rare in the art world?
-You're asking the wrong person
because most people
would say yes, it's shocking.
But I see this every day.
I mean, I can give
you a dozen Inigos.
Actually this is where
Inigo's gallery was.
It's available if you
want to take a space.
-Inigo was a big player
in the auction houses.
For hundreds of years they've
operated a code of honor
based on trust.
Buyers and sellers are
allowed to remain anonymous,
and sales are also often
done through intermediaries
and shell companies.
There's little
public transparency
about the finances
behind each sale.
Whilst none of this is illegal,
it can provide fertile
ground for criminals.
-The art market is a
highly unregulated market.
The auction houses
themselves are ultimately banks.
The amount of money that
flows through the auctions houses
are just staggering,
are -- are huge.
It's an area that can't
really be thoroughly
investigated by law enforcement
because of -- of the
lack of knowledge
and because of the lack
of access to information.
In the art world, there's
almost no concept of know
your customer, like
in the banking world,
and we've seen that
the banking world
is so riddled with, you know,
organized crime and corruption,
despite AOIC and
these types of policies.
-When Inigo's alleged
frauds unraveled,
he suddenly disappeared.
But in June 2020, the FBI
picked him up in his Hawaiian
swimming trunks on the
South Pacific island of Vanuatu.
He was extradited and charged
with fraud and identity theft.
He is currently awaiting
trial and denies the charges.
A lot of people might look at
art fraud as a victimless crime.
Rich people stealing
off rich people
who hardly notice the
gap in their bank account.
But let's not forget the people
behind the art which is now seen
to many as a financial
asset ripe for exploitation.
So I'm about to
meet Jake Chapman,
who's a very successful artist.
It's going to be
interesting to hear
from an artist's perspective
about the art boom
and the criminality
it's attracted.
Hi, how are you?
-Hello.
Come in, come in, come in.
-Thank you very much.
So this is "Hell"?
-Well, this is a piece that
comes from the "Hell" series.
It's not hell itself,
which is a kind of like
an inverse death camp,
where the Nazis get put
back into their own machine,
industrial genocide.
Here they're having to
give up their teddy bears.
You can see them all crying
and being very upset
about doing that, so
-What have you
got going on here?
-These are bronze bomb vests.
-Oh, my God.
Fucking hell.
-Yeah, exactly.
They're supposed to be sort
of memorials to immortality.
-Would you sell an
individual one of these?
-Well, do you want to buy it?
-Yeah, how much would it cost?
-A lot.
-When you were
selling the, the hellscape,
like, how much
would that go for?
-The first one, that
sold for 500,000.
The next one sold
for like five million.
The idea of making
money from art,
I don't think it really
occurred to anyone
for a long time, you know?
I still find it sort of quite
a strange sort of collision
between wanting to do
something and being paid for it.
-Was it strange seeing all
these billionaires and bankers
appearing in a market they
hadn't been around before?
-Yeah, I mean, I remember
seeing investment bankers
or speculators or stock--
stockbrokers, you
know, writing on the wall
next to the bit of
art they'd bought,
that "I bought
this" and signing it.
There was a kind of
delirium about, you know,
the amount of money that
these people were injecting into it.
-Why was this
sudden interest in art?
-Money.
Art is the preeminent capitalist
object, more than anything,
because it has
no utilitarian value,
and so therefore it only
has speculative value.
So anyone who kind of thinks
that it's somehow
insulting to art
that it gets collided
with money,
is -- is actually deceitful.
Because they actually treat
it as though it's a theology,
you know, but it's actually
the theology of pure money.
-So art shouldn't
be romanticized.
-No.
-How do you feel about
the criminality then,
that's kind of rife
in the art market?
-I'm all for it. [ Laughter ]
No, I mean I don't see any
need for art to be defended
from the people
who speculate on it,
because in some senses part
of what's interesting about art
is that it extorts
value in some ways,
you can't produce an
equivalence for why one work of art
is worth something
and one's not.
-This arbitrary nature
of price is at the heart
of what's been called the
art world's greatest scandal --
the Bouvier Affair.
Over 10 years, Swiss
businessman Yves Bouvier
sold 38 of the
world's masterpieces,
including a Da Vinci now
worth over $450 million,
to the owner of AS
Monaco football club,
Russian Oligarch
Dmitry Rybolovlev.
This shopping spree
added up to $2 billion.
In 2015, Rybolovlev alleged
that Bouvier had overcharged him.
He claimed they'd agreed
commission fees of $40 million.
Bouvier had taken $1 billion.
Bouvier was arrested,
and a titanic battle
has played out in
international courts ever since --
from Europe to Asia
and even the US.
Many have called the Bouvier
Affair a watershed moment
in the much-needed push
for regulation in the art world.
♪♪
-I've come to Geneva,
where nearly 20% of the
population are millionaires.
I've come across a woman
called Sixtine Crutchfield,
which basically sounds
like a Bond villain,
but she's agreed to
take me out on her boat,
which is equally Bond.
She's also been dubbed
Bouvier's secret weapon.
Sixtine! Hello. [ Chuckles ]
-How are you?
-I'm good, how are you doing?
-Good, thank you.
-It's blooming hot, isn't it?
-Come on in.
-Thank you.
An expert in fine art,
Sixtine worked with Bouvier
as he pioneered selling to the
highly lucrative Russian market.
-Their 2004 Moscow Art
Fair raised Bouvier's profile
with wealthy oligarchs
like Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Were you involved in any
of the deals with Dmitry?
-Not the financial aspect
of things, but I knew --
sometimes I knew
some of the paintings
that were being offered,
but I never presented a work
to Dmitry or anything like that.
-It's quite an impressive
collection that he's acquired.
-It is.
To me, probably it's the number
one collection in the world,
private collection in
the world at the moment,
and that's thanks to Yves only.
-Why have you been called
"Bouvier's secret weapon"?
[ Laughter ]
-I don't know.
I've been in the art
world 35 years basically,
and I've been lucky to
be at the top all the time.
Whatever he was accused
of is -- is totally erroneous.
I mean, we -- every art
dealer, and I can name them,
but I won't, but I -- you know,
they all try and buy cheap
or even rip someone
off to get the piece cheap,
and then sell it as expensive
as -- as, uh, as you can,
and that's -- that's just
the name of commerce.
-So, how do you feel about
all the court cases against him?
-He's been brought
out in the media
as being the worst
gangster ever.
He's lost a lot of friends.
He lost family business.
He's lost basically
the joy of living.
He started smoking again.
The advice that I would
give Yves is to continue living
and forget about it, if he can,
but because Dmitry is not
going to lie down, that's for sure.
-No.
Sixtine is adamant
Bouvier's billion-dollar gains
aren't evidence of crime,
but standard procedure
in an unregulated world
where profit is king.
But some of Bouvier's
mark-ups were extortionate.
He bought a Rothko
for $80 million,
and sold it to Rybolovlev
for $140 million.
Prices were going up
in the tens of millions
from one day to the next.
Like many of the super rich,
Rybolovlev is super media shy.
But he's allowed his Swiss
lawyer Sandrine to tell me
about the alleged
one billion dollar fraud.
Lots of books on art.
-[ Chuckles ]
So what was their established
business relationship?
-Dmitry Rybolovlev entrusted
Bouvier to be his agent,
meaning that Bouvier would
work on behalf of Dmitry Rybolovlev
to find the best art
works at the best price.
And against the services, he
would be remunerated at 2%
on the purchase price
of any transaction.
And that would make, out
of a $2 billion art collection,
$40 million, which is
quite a substantial amount,
but obviously it wasn't
enough for -- for Bouvier,
because in the end he took
an additional one billion mark-up
over this $2 billion
art collection.
-So when did things begin
to turn sour with Yves?
-First there were several
unsuccessful attempts to sell
some of the art works
that Bouvier had acquired
when Bouvier had pretended
these were super good
opportunities and investment,
but then it all came to a point
when Dmitry Rybolovlev met,
by chance, a very prominent
New York art dealer.
He knew one of the paintings
that Dmitry had bought,
and he mentioned
that he had sold it
for about $90-plus million,
and that's when Dmitry
realized something went wrong,
because he had
bought it for $118 million.
And then he realized the full
scope of what had happened
over 10 years.
-And how did Dmitry
feel when he found out?
-Just imagine you realize
that you've been cheated over
10 years
by the very person you
entrusted to defend your interests.
Someone who would help
you navigate the art market
to find the best possible deals.
Obviously, I mean
deception, surprise.
Bouvier was essentially known
for being a fine art transport
and storage guy,
and so he had a lot
of insider information.
But obviously the people who
entrusted him with the art works
at the freeport didn't
necessarily want him
to use that information.
So confidentiality
was really, really key.
-Bouvier pioneered the use
of freeports in the art world.
These secretive
armored warehouses
completely revolutionized
the way the art market works.
♪♪
-Well, the thing
about freeports,
it's an ultra secure
high tech facility
to house works such as
art pieces, precious metal,
jewelries, investment,
great wines,
as well as other
precious collectibles.
Mr. Bouvier actually purchased
this beautiful sculpture,
created and designed
by an Israeli artist
by the name of Ron Arad,
and it comes at a price tag of
five million Singapore dollars.
In this building we do
not deploy water sprinkler.
We actually deploy a
nitrogen suppression system.
It reduces the oxygen in
the air to about 12%, 13%,
so it is not able to
support any naked flames.
Works of art and
water is a definite no-no.
This corridor has a very
special lighting effect.
Mr. Bouvier worked very
closely with the lighting designer,
Johanna Grawunder,
to give this corridor a
very sophisticated look.
Having blue lighting
also makes this building
a little bit more sci-fi.
-It's estimated that
80% of the world's art
is in storage facilities, hidden
away from the public eye.
Freeports are an
attractive prospect.
You don't have to
pay tax on your art,
you can throw gallery openings
in your own storage space,
and arrive straight
off your private jet
without entering the country.
-With the blessing of
one of the collectors,
they have agreed to allow us
to show you one of the galleries
that is with some
Chinese ink paintings.
There's a total of 24
showrooms that can be converted
into a proper gallery space.
When Mr. Bouvier
comes to this room,
he will have his
own private office
where he will house his guests,
or even treat them to a bottle
of good wine or champagne.
Well, Mr. Yves Bouvier,
he is really committed
to this building.
He is the one that selects
all the designer lightings,
what kind of art work or
sculptures to be displayed,
down to the individual
safe deposit boxes,
he needs to make sure
that the qualities are good,
before he allows
the purchase of it.
We also have a sister
facility in Luxembourg,
built by the same team,
under the supervision of
Mr. Yves Bouvier personally.
Mr. Yves Bouvier is
the king of freeports.
-Freeports aren't illegal,
but are definitely
controversial.
Since the mid-'90s
stolen antiquities and art,
some looted from war
zones like Syria and Libya,
have been found
at Geneva Freeport,
which Bouvier used to
be a major shareholder of.
-Yves Bouvier
had this great idea
that this is a storage facility.
It's not covered
by tax jurisdiction.
So freeports are really
some of the greatest enablers
when it comes to tax evasion.
So freeports allowed for
the art object to be dealt with,
you know, in a way that it
didn't move across borders,
it was always in transit.
And at the same time,
it allows for the owner
to be unknown of very valuable,
you know, art from
all over the world.
When we looked at what
we dubbed the laundromats,
these systems that
allowed organized crime
to invest money in a hidden way,
we're seeing that there
are lots of art purchases,
from paintings to statues.
So it's kind of a double layer,
where you have financial
flows that are completely hidden,
and then the art allowing
you to move large,
large amounts of
money in a secretive way.
♪♪
-The king of freeports himself
has agreed to meet with me
and tell his side of the
story for the very first time.
So I've been told
to meet Yves here.
I'm just waiting for him.
We're going to walk
through the vineyard
and we're going to lunch.
Okay, I've just seen him.
He's on a scooter.
[ Laughs ]
I love your scooter.
-Hi, how are you?
-Hi Yves,
it's so nice to meet you.
Oh. it's the spud.
-Yes.
-Thank you so much
for meeting with me.
-Pleasure.
-So we're going to go
through the vineyard?
-Yes.
-Where are you going
to put your scooter?
Just leave it? Will
someone not steal it?
-No. -[ Chuckles ]
-We're in Geneva.
So you've sold some of the
most impressive works in history.
How has this all come about?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Is it normal for
someone to be involved
in both the storage
and the dealing of art?
Do you use the information
that you gain in the dealing?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So the all-important question,
how did you meet Dmitry?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how did you
become his art dealer?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-So far, so good.
But I was wondering how Bouvier
is going to defend his ramping
up of prices by tens of millions
from one day to the next.
And the fact he sent
Rybolovlev e-mails
where he created
fictional sellers
who won't drop their price,
and want payment immediately,
when he was in fact
the seller himself.
So is it legitimate to
buy art work for one price
and then dramatically increase
the price of it the next day?
For example, you bought
the Rothko for 80 million,
and you sold it for 140 million.
-Yes.
[ Speaking in French ]
-So how about these
e-mails where you're saying
the seller won't go below 200,
but you're in fact that seller?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Obviously one of the
accusations Dmitry had
is that you agreed
to 2% commission.
Is that not true?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how did it all go wrong?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-According to court documents,
Dmitry's wife Elena
filed for divorce
after becoming
tired of his infidelities.
She accused Dmitry
of transferring assets
to overseas trusts to
keep them out of her reach.
This included his rapidly
increasing art collection,
a $95 million mansion
bought from President Trump,
and a private Greek island.
-[ Speaking in French ]
"No."
-After this theatrical ambush,
Yves was charged with
fraud and money laundering.
Dmitry then issued court orders
freezing Yves' assets
across the globe.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how much have
you spent on lawyers
over the last few years?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Fuck. [ Chuckles ]
Will you ever bow
down to Dmitry?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-So you could say that Yves is
just a very clever businessman
who took advantage of
a market that allows it.
I can't imagine that
Dmitry is this naive oligarch
that he's painting
himself out to be.
I don't know if
"naive" and "oligarch"
can go in the same sentence.
Yves talks all the
big fighting talk,
but he's basically up
against a Russian oligarch,
and that must be
pretty terrifying.
♪♪
-Yves claims there's a
massive operation so that Dmitry
pays his ex-wife less money
in the divorce settlement.
-That's completely nonsense,
and just shows again
how vivid Yves
Bouvier's imagination is.
As I said, this matter
spans a period of 10 years,
so it's -- it's completely
unrelated to divorce,
which was peacefully
settled in 2015.
-Yves says that 2%
commission wouldn't even pay
for storage alone,
so that that would never
have been the case.
-Yeah, that has
been his contention,
which is absolutely unsupported.
It's complete fantasy.
-So were there any
contracts ever signed
between them at the
beginning of the relationship?
-It's a complex question because
there were some contracts,
but in terms of the overall
relationship that they had,
it is evidenced by the numerous
e-mails and exchanges they had.
-Bouvier faces an enemy
who has very deep pockets.
Rybolovlev sold his share
in Russia's biggest fertilizer
company for billions of dollars,
and quickly got his
money out of the country.
-Dmitry Rybolovlev
comes from the bloody fog
of the '90s in Russia.
But he was one of those
guys who managed to rise
and to actually
expand from Russia.
A lot of the investments
are done abroad
because in Russia their mind-set
is that there's always
going to be someone
who wants to take from them.
And they want the safety
of the western societies.
By buying the football
team in Monaco,
just like in the case of art,
football gives them access.
They get recognition
from the general public.
You are able to put your
foot strongly into a society.
-The way Dmitry used his
football team to curry favor
with the principality's elite
radically changed
his battle with Bouvier.
I've flown to Dmitry's kingdom,
the tax evasion
theme park of Monaco.
There seems to be
police everywhere.
I've been stopped twice.
So we're having
to do it on iPhone,
and hopefully they won't
have any problem with that.
So I walked past La
Belle Epoque earlier.
I'm a bit nervous about
getting the big camera out,
so I posed as an influencer.
After Dmitry had settled here,
he quickly engaged
in an orchestrated
and opulent gifting campaign,
aimed at politicians
and police officers.
These gifts included
helicopter rides,
holidays, really expensive wine
and tickets to AS Monaco games.
And when his battle
with Bouvier erupted,
he called in his favors.
This led to a massive
scandal dubbed "Monacogate."
So I'm about to
meet Gerard Davet,
who is a journalist
for Le Monde.
He broke the story
of "Monacogate."
At the heart of this
story was a DVD
that exposed some pretty
embarrassing texts for Dmitry.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So what were these
texts with the police?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Dmitry, with the help
of his lawyer Tatiana,
had managed to buy the loyalty
of Monaco's justice minister,
and the police force.
He then allegedly
used this power to get
Yves Bouvier arrested.
Tatiana says she was
operating within the law.
So what is the court case
against Dmitry in Monaco?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-It's been a huge embarrassment
for the prince
and Monaco itself.
The court case hasn't
been decided yet,
but some of the people
involved in Monacogate
have had to resign.
So it's not looking good.
In December 2019,
a Monaco judge threw out all
charges against Yves Bouvier.
What is Dmitry's response to the
reported charges and allegations
made against him
relating to Monacogate?
-Obviously he strongly denies
any of these accusations,
which are completely false,
and they are being examined
now by the Monaco Justice,
and we look forward to
being vindicated in court.
-The Monaco police chief
sent a text to Dmitry saying,
"I assure you of my loyalty."
And then there was another
text, just before Yves' arrest,
Tatiana sent to the
chief superintendent
and head of Monaco Police,
"He will come on the 25th
of February in the morning,
that's certain.
Plan A should remain in place."
What would Dmitry's
defense be to those?
-So this is
privileged information
which already is a problem
because in principle,
all the information
that the lawyer has
about a case in privileged.
Second, these text messages
have shown relationship
between lawyer and
the Monaco authorities,
and as such,
they are not illegal.
It's not illegal to
discuss a case
with a prosecutor
or with the police.
-And what about the gifts to
people in positions of power?
-First you have to wonder
whether they were big gifts
given, that's
the first question.
And second, you
have to look into --
into what Monaco
would say about this.
I can't comment
as a Swiss lawyer.
But the -- the idea
that there would have
been corruption action
on the part of our
client is strongly denied
because it's -- it just
simply is not the case.
-Dmitry was willing to use
dirty tactics in his fight with Yves,
but it seems Yves isn't
so squeaky clean himself.
There are many other
accusations doing the rounds.
Yves Bouvier has told
me his side of the story,
but there are all these
other things that
Yves been accused of.
It's not just court
cases with Dmitry.
He's been accused
by the Swiss authorities
of evading taxes
of up to $360 million.
He's also been accused
of selling stolen Picassos.
In 2015, Yves faced
charges of hiding the fact
that two Picasso
paintings sold to Dmitry
were stolen from
Picasso's stepdaughter.
She claimed the paintings
were for Bouvier to store, not sell.
The case is ongoing.
And then we find that
he's also been accused
of selling forgeries
by the infamous
Wolfgang Beltracchi.
His selling of a fake
by Wolfgang Beltracchi
is another curious
episode in Yves' career.
He forged over 1,000 paintings,
fooled experts across the globe,
and there are
hundreds of his works
still said to be in circulation.
So this is shaping my
opinion a bit differently,
because there's -- obviously
there's other stuff going on,
not just what he's telling me.
I've come to Paris to
meet Bouvier one last time
and ask him about these other
court cases he's been fighting.
-Romantic walk.
-It's a very
romantic walk, Yves.
Lovely day for it.
So I read there's been
recent charges of tax evasion
in Switzerland.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So the case of
the stolen Picassos,
was that also Dmitry's work?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-How about the accusations
of selling the forgeries
by Wolfgang Beltracchi?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how many court
cases have you won?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So a lot.
-Yes.
-So what has it felt like to
be accused of being a criminal
and had your name smeared in
all the media around the world?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-In your feud with Dmitry,
have you ever felt scared?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Bouvier's side
gave us these images
which apparently show
people following him.
They claim it is
evidence that Dmitry
is using extra-judicial
tactics of intimidation.
So, Yves claims that
he's been followed
and has had phones hacked.
-Well, that's his allegation.
I don't have any
knowledge of it,
and so I don't know if he has
many enemies which may do that.
That's -- That's something
that you have to ask him.
-Is it a personal
vendetta at this point?
-Not at all.
It's -- That's what
Bouvier's trying to make
out of this matter,
and he's trying to
make it very personal.
-Why has Yves won
so many of his cases?
-He hasn't won
any of these cases.
That's what he
pretends everywhere.
There has never been a decision
on -- on the matter as such.
And basically everything
now, on the merits of the --
the dispute, is to be
dealt with in Switzerland.
-Yves still faces one
further court battle
with Dmitry in Geneva.
We walked to his
Parisian gallery
from which he's
now trying to stage
his grand comeback
into the art world.
-Here is my gallery.
The biggest one on the road.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, wow.
It's a big space.
-Yes.
-How long have you had it?
Avec Le Louvre.
-Very close.
-Yes.
-So at least you're able
to operate in this gallery
as an art dealer.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-They claim that
the "Bouvier Affair"
has been a watershed
moment for pushing for regulation
in the art world.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Any regrets?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-In the end, it's
a massive fight
between a multi-millionaire
and a multi-billionaire,
both of whom feel persecuted,
despite one owning a
gallery opposite the Louvre,
and the other owning
a football team
and an island and
a real estate empire.
We can't say who's
right or wrong in this,
but what the Bouvier
Affair has exposed
is how the art market's
culture of greed,
combined with its
billions of dollars
and total lack of
stringent regulation,
leaves it vulnerable to
widespread exploitation.
-The problem is is
that the regulations
that are already on the
books are not being enforced.
There just isn't enough
funding for law enforcement,
for prosecutors, for
-- for police officers
to enforce the laws that
apply to the art world.
-Do you think
anything's actually
going to change
in the art world?
-I keep warning the art market
that if they don't
police themselves,
they're going to have
it imposed on them.
They're going to
find the government
breathing down their necks.
-Wouldn't that put
you out of a job?
-I don't believe I'll
ever be put out of a job.
There's always going
to be people stealing art.
There's always going to
be people committing fraud
against others in the art world.
I think that there's a lot
more work in the future.
-With a steady trickle of new
rules around client identity
and money laundering
now coming into force,
it remains to be seen whether
the art world will reign on
as the most secretive
market on earth.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
crime has no natural predator.
-[ Shouts indistinctly ] -Crime
syndicates are expanding
and forging alliances
across the globe.
-[ Speaking in
foreign language ]
-As law enforcements
struggle to stop them,
up to 5% of the global
economy is now in criminal hands.
I'm Paul Radu, and
for the past 20 years
I have investigated
international organized crime
in the tune of $400 billion,
and this is a very, very small
slice of what's really going on.
-I think there are some
people. Let's go, let's go.
-In this series, I'm working
with a team of reporters
around the world
-Are you angry with yourself
for being part of this?
[ Indistinct shouting ]
-to discover how a
generation of international gangs
are redrawing the criminal map.
-When investigating
the criminal underworld,
you wouldn't expect
to start your journey
somewhere like this.
But I'm meeting Rob
Sheffield, the son of a baron,
to get an insider's view on
how the art world's been hit
by alleged multi-million
pound frauds.
Very impressive.
-Welcome, Syd. Welcome
to North Yorkshire.
-God, it's huge.
-Yeah.
-What's this?
-This is Michele
Abeles, this is great.
She's made it quite sculptural.
Neon light, and you can
see there's a man penis,
and it's just like,
it's also sort of riffing off on
Instagram and the social
-Yeah, there's a verified tick.
-Yeah.
Another work. Yuri Pattison.
I've got to turn this on,
actually. It's got a sound.
[ Soft mechanical whirring ]
-Oh, I see.
-Yeah.
-Why have you put it here?
-I'm running out of space.
-[ Laughs ]
Rob worked in the auction
house Christie's for five years
when a financial boom hit
the contemporary art world.
He has a unique view on
how an industry now worth
$64 billion a year
is attracting a new
type of criminal.
So what was it like working
during the boom
of the art market?
-It was like a football team
that just kept on winning,
but everyone was winning.
Every football team was winning
in the entire Premier League.
It was just a huge party with
the richest people in the world.
-A lot of drugs?
-Yeah, there was plenty
of drugs, plenty of booze,
and huge sums of
cash being exchanged.
It had this intense mad
energy, like almost fever pitch,
and I think everyone in some
way kind of lost their heads,
including myself.
And it just, for
me, drifted away
from what art should
be and can be about,
and it became this sort of
circus of wealth and power
and greed and status.
-Is there a lot of ego
involved then, in the art world?
-Huge. I used to call a lot
of my friends "the art bros."
And it was just like
cocksure, very arrogant.
I feel that culture has
obviously opened a door
to a criminal mind-set.
It's too easy for people
to break the rules,
because there aren't
any rules to break.
That's exactly why
we're getting all these,
these instances like these
huge legal cases now.
-The art world has been hit
by a new breed of
opportunist criminal,
and there is one who sent
shock waves through the industry.
33-year-old jet-setting art bro
Inigo Philbrick was
arrested in 2020
for conning clients and
friends out of over $20 million,
before disappearing
off the face of the earth.
His audacious alleged scams
include selling the same share
in a work of art to
multiple unwitting clients,
and securing million
pound loans using art works
he didn't own as collateral.
-If you look at Inigo Philbrick,
he's not the cause
of the disease,
but he is a symptom
of the disease.
Someone who came in very young,
saw there was quick
money to be made,
found it irresistible,
got in over his head.
Dishonesty is rife
within the industry.
-Rob saw Inigo's meteoric rise.
Starting as an intern,
within eight years
Inigo owned galleries
in London and Miami,
and was spending millions in
the contemporary art market.
How do you know Inigo Philbrick?
-Straight in there, are we?
[ Laughter ]
When you have an
auction, like all the big dogs
are at the front,
and Inigo was like,
within a couple of years,
a couple of rows back.
And then everyone
was a bit like,
"Who is this guy, you know?"
Also his paddle was going up,
you know, he was doing deals.
The money was there.
It was strange, but no
one really questioned it.
He had this swagger.
Never took me seriously.
Definitely arrogant
is a word I would use,
and I felt really
vindicated actually when
Inigo got exposed,
because I was like,
"Well, yeah, actually, you know,
you were laughing at me then,
but I'm the one laughing now."
And I feel like, you
know, fuck, so maybe
I was right to be a bit
naive and a bit idealistic,
and that's what the
art world's about,
so, you know, they
can fucking jog on.
-[ Laughs ]
How many Inigos do
you think there are?
-Fucking loads.
It's a shady place.
Just imagine a world
where there is no regulation,
and if you just bend a rule here
you can make a
little bit more money.
And the worst thing that happens
to you, you might lose a client.
It's a perfect
equation for corruption.
-That corruption has hit the
historic home of the art world,
London's Mayfair.
This was Inigo's
stomping ground.
I'm on my way to
meet Chris Marinello,
who's been dubbed the
Sherlock Holmes of the art world.
He started a company called
Art Recovery International,
and they retrieve
lost and looted art
works from around the world.
Why is the art world so
prone to financial crime?
-It's money.
I mean, if you look around
you, it's all about the money.
it's about the Lamborghinis
and the Ferraris and the £200,000
watches and the incredible
Andy Warhol paintings,
and they read about it and
they hear about the money
that's being generated from
the sale of these objects,
and they call want a part of it.
Mr. Philbrick was not the
first one to do this type of fraud.
What Inigo's fame, infamy has
come from is the Instagram age,
where art advisors
are using social media
to buy and sell works of art.
-So would you say that
Instagram and social media
had helped facilitate crime?
-Oh, absolutely.
Inigo's been traveling
to exotic locations,
dealing in -- in some
very high-end works of art.
The fabulous parties,
fabulous events, private jets,
and all of this is done
to create some sort of
an image of infallibility, so
that people feel comfortable
in spending $50 or
$70 million with him.
-Do you think Inigo's
behavior is rare in the art world?
-You're asking the wrong person
because most people
would say yes, it's shocking.
But I see this every day.
I mean, I can give
you a dozen Inigos.
Actually this is where
Inigo's gallery was.
It's available if you
want to take a space.
-Inigo was a big player
in the auction houses.
For hundreds of years they've
operated a code of honor
based on trust.
Buyers and sellers are
allowed to remain anonymous,
and sales are also often
done through intermediaries
and shell companies.
There's little
public transparency
about the finances
behind each sale.
Whilst none of this is illegal,
it can provide fertile
ground for criminals.
-The art market is a
highly unregulated market.
The auction houses
themselves are ultimately banks.
The amount of money that
flows through the auctions houses
are just staggering,
are -- are huge.
It's an area that can't
really be thoroughly
investigated by law enforcement
because of -- of the
lack of knowledge
and because of the lack
of access to information.
In the art world, there's
almost no concept of know
your customer, like
in the banking world,
and we've seen that
the banking world
is so riddled with, you know,
organized crime and corruption,
despite AOIC and
these types of policies.
-When Inigo's alleged
frauds unraveled,
he suddenly disappeared.
But in June 2020, the FBI
picked him up in his Hawaiian
swimming trunks on the
South Pacific island of Vanuatu.
He was extradited and charged
with fraud and identity theft.
He is currently awaiting
trial and denies the charges.
A lot of people might look at
art fraud as a victimless crime.
Rich people stealing
off rich people
who hardly notice the
gap in their bank account.
But let's not forget the people
behind the art which is now seen
to many as a financial
asset ripe for exploitation.
So I'm about to
meet Jake Chapman,
who's a very successful artist.
It's going to be
interesting to hear
from an artist's perspective
about the art boom
and the criminality
it's attracted.
Hi, how are you?
-Hello.
Come in, come in, come in.
-Thank you very much.
So this is "Hell"?
-Well, this is a piece that
comes from the "Hell" series.
It's not hell itself,
which is a kind of like
an inverse death camp,
where the Nazis get put
back into their own machine,
industrial genocide.
Here they're having to
give up their teddy bears.
You can see them all crying
and being very upset
about doing that, so
-What have you
got going on here?
-These are bronze bomb vests.
-Oh, my God.
Fucking hell.
-Yeah, exactly.
They're supposed to be sort
of memorials to immortality.
-Would you sell an
individual one of these?
-Well, do you want to buy it?
-Yeah, how much would it cost?
-A lot.
-When you were
selling the, the hellscape,
like, how much
would that go for?
-The first one, that
sold for 500,000.
The next one sold
for like five million.
The idea of making
money from art,
I don't think it really
occurred to anyone
for a long time, you know?
I still find it sort of quite
a strange sort of collision
between wanting to do
something and being paid for it.
-Was it strange seeing all
these billionaires and bankers
appearing in a market they
hadn't been around before?
-Yeah, I mean, I remember
seeing investment bankers
or speculators or stock--
stockbrokers, you
know, writing on the wall
next to the bit of
art they'd bought,
that "I bought
this" and signing it.
There was a kind of
delirium about, you know,
the amount of money that
these people were injecting into it.
-Why was this
sudden interest in art?
-Money.
Art is the preeminent capitalist
object, more than anything,
because it has
no utilitarian value,
and so therefore it only
has speculative value.
So anyone who kind of thinks
that it's somehow
insulting to art
that it gets collided
with money,
is -- is actually deceitful.
Because they actually treat
it as though it's a theology,
you know, but it's actually
the theology of pure money.
-So art shouldn't
be romanticized.
-No.
-How do you feel about
the criminality then,
that's kind of rife
in the art market?
-I'm all for it. [ Laughter ]
No, I mean I don't see any
need for art to be defended
from the people
who speculate on it,
because in some senses part
of what's interesting about art
is that it extorts
value in some ways,
you can't produce an
equivalence for why one work of art
is worth something
and one's not.
-This arbitrary nature
of price is at the heart
of what's been called the
art world's greatest scandal --
the Bouvier Affair.
Over 10 years, Swiss
businessman Yves Bouvier
sold 38 of the
world's masterpieces,
including a Da Vinci now
worth over $450 million,
to the owner of AS
Monaco football club,
Russian Oligarch
Dmitry Rybolovlev.
This shopping spree
added up to $2 billion.
In 2015, Rybolovlev alleged
that Bouvier had overcharged him.
He claimed they'd agreed
commission fees of $40 million.
Bouvier had taken $1 billion.
Bouvier was arrested,
and a titanic battle
has played out in
international courts ever since --
from Europe to Asia
and even the US.
Many have called the Bouvier
Affair a watershed moment
in the much-needed push
for regulation in the art world.
♪♪
-I've come to Geneva,
where nearly 20% of the
population are millionaires.
I've come across a woman
called Sixtine Crutchfield,
which basically sounds
like a Bond villain,
but she's agreed to
take me out on her boat,
which is equally Bond.
She's also been dubbed
Bouvier's secret weapon.
Sixtine! Hello. [ Chuckles ]
-How are you?
-I'm good, how are you doing?
-Good, thank you.
-It's blooming hot, isn't it?
-Come on in.
-Thank you.
An expert in fine art,
Sixtine worked with Bouvier
as he pioneered selling to the
highly lucrative Russian market.
-Their 2004 Moscow Art
Fair raised Bouvier's profile
with wealthy oligarchs
like Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Were you involved in any
of the deals with Dmitry?
-Not the financial aspect
of things, but I knew --
sometimes I knew
some of the paintings
that were being offered,
but I never presented a work
to Dmitry or anything like that.
-It's quite an impressive
collection that he's acquired.
-It is.
To me, probably it's the number
one collection in the world,
private collection in
the world at the moment,
and that's thanks to Yves only.
-Why have you been called
"Bouvier's secret weapon"?
[ Laughter ]
-I don't know.
I've been in the art
world 35 years basically,
and I've been lucky to
be at the top all the time.
Whatever he was accused
of is -- is totally erroneous.
I mean, we -- every art
dealer, and I can name them,
but I won't, but I -- you know,
they all try and buy cheap
or even rip someone
off to get the piece cheap,
and then sell it as expensive
as -- as, uh, as you can,
and that's -- that's just
the name of commerce.
-So, how do you feel about
all the court cases against him?
-He's been brought
out in the media
as being the worst
gangster ever.
He's lost a lot of friends.
He lost family business.
He's lost basically
the joy of living.
He started smoking again.
The advice that I would
give Yves is to continue living
and forget about it, if he can,
but because Dmitry is not
going to lie down, that's for sure.
-No.
Sixtine is adamant
Bouvier's billion-dollar gains
aren't evidence of crime,
but standard procedure
in an unregulated world
where profit is king.
But some of Bouvier's
mark-ups were extortionate.
He bought a Rothko
for $80 million,
and sold it to Rybolovlev
for $140 million.
Prices were going up
in the tens of millions
from one day to the next.
Like many of the super rich,
Rybolovlev is super media shy.
But he's allowed his Swiss
lawyer Sandrine to tell me
about the alleged
one billion dollar fraud.
Lots of books on art.
-[ Chuckles ]
So what was their established
business relationship?
-Dmitry Rybolovlev entrusted
Bouvier to be his agent,
meaning that Bouvier would
work on behalf of Dmitry Rybolovlev
to find the best art
works at the best price.
And against the services, he
would be remunerated at 2%
on the purchase price
of any transaction.
And that would make, out
of a $2 billion art collection,
$40 million, which is
quite a substantial amount,
but obviously it wasn't
enough for -- for Bouvier,
because in the end he took
an additional one billion mark-up
over this $2 billion
art collection.
-So when did things begin
to turn sour with Yves?
-First there were several
unsuccessful attempts to sell
some of the art works
that Bouvier had acquired
when Bouvier had pretended
these were super good
opportunities and investment,
but then it all came to a point
when Dmitry Rybolovlev met,
by chance, a very prominent
New York art dealer.
He knew one of the paintings
that Dmitry had bought,
and he mentioned
that he had sold it
for about $90-plus million,
and that's when Dmitry
realized something went wrong,
because he had
bought it for $118 million.
And then he realized the full
scope of what had happened
over 10 years.
-And how did Dmitry
feel when he found out?
-Just imagine you realize
that you've been cheated over
10 years
by the very person you
entrusted to defend your interests.
Someone who would help
you navigate the art market
to find the best possible deals.
Obviously, I mean
deception, surprise.
Bouvier was essentially known
for being a fine art transport
and storage guy,
and so he had a lot
of insider information.
But obviously the people who
entrusted him with the art works
at the freeport didn't
necessarily want him
to use that information.
So confidentiality
was really, really key.
-Bouvier pioneered the use
of freeports in the art world.
These secretive
armored warehouses
completely revolutionized
the way the art market works.
♪♪
-Well, the thing
about freeports,
it's an ultra secure
high tech facility
to house works such as
art pieces, precious metal,
jewelries, investment,
great wines,
as well as other
precious collectibles.
Mr. Bouvier actually purchased
this beautiful sculpture,
created and designed
by an Israeli artist
by the name of Ron Arad,
and it comes at a price tag of
five million Singapore dollars.
In this building we do
not deploy water sprinkler.
We actually deploy a
nitrogen suppression system.
It reduces the oxygen in
the air to about 12%, 13%,
so it is not able to
support any naked flames.
Works of art and
water is a definite no-no.
This corridor has a very
special lighting effect.
Mr. Bouvier worked very
closely with the lighting designer,
Johanna Grawunder,
to give this corridor a
very sophisticated look.
Having blue lighting
also makes this building
a little bit more sci-fi.
-It's estimated that
80% of the world's art
is in storage facilities, hidden
away from the public eye.
Freeports are an
attractive prospect.
You don't have to
pay tax on your art,
you can throw gallery openings
in your own storage space,
and arrive straight
off your private jet
without entering the country.
-With the blessing of
one of the collectors,
they have agreed to allow us
to show you one of the galleries
that is with some
Chinese ink paintings.
There's a total of 24
showrooms that can be converted
into a proper gallery space.
When Mr. Bouvier
comes to this room,
he will have his
own private office
where he will house his guests,
or even treat them to a bottle
of good wine or champagne.
Well, Mr. Yves Bouvier,
he is really committed
to this building.
He is the one that selects
all the designer lightings,
what kind of art work or
sculptures to be displayed,
down to the individual
safe deposit boxes,
he needs to make sure
that the qualities are good,
before he allows
the purchase of it.
We also have a sister
facility in Luxembourg,
built by the same team,
under the supervision of
Mr. Yves Bouvier personally.
Mr. Yves Bouvier is
the king of freeports.
-Freeports aren't illegal,
but are definitely
controversial.
Since the mid-'90s
stolen antiquities and art,
some looted from war
zones like Syria and Libya,
have been found
at Geneva Freeport,
which Bouvier used to
be a major shareholder of.
-Yves Bouvier
had this great idea
that this is a storage facility.
It's not covered
by tax jurisdiction.
So freeports are really
some of the greatest enablers
when it comes to tax evasion.
So freeports allowed for
the art object to be dealt with,
you know, in a way that it
didn't move across borders,
it was always in transit.
And at the same time,
it allows for the owner
to be unknown of very valuable,
you know, art from
all over the world.
When we looked at what
we dubbed the laundromats,
these systems that
allowed organized crime
to invest money in a hidden way,
we're seeing that there
are lots of art purchases,
from paintings to statues.
So it's kind of a double layer,
where you have financial
flows that are completely hidden,
and then the art allowing
you to move large,
large amounts of
money in a secretive way.
♪♪
-The king of freeports himself
has agreed to meet with me
and tell his side of the
story for the very first time.
So I've been told
to meet Yves here.
I'm just waiting for him.
We're going to walk
through the vineyard
and we're going to lunch.
Okay, I've just seen him.
He's on a scooter.
[ Laughs ]
I love your scooter.
-Hi, how are you?
-Hi Yves,
it's so nice to meet you.
Oh. it's the spud.
-Yes.
-Thank you so much
for meeting with me.
-Pleasure.
-So we're going to go
through the vineyard?
-Yes.
-Where are you going
to put your scooter?
Just leave it? Will
someone not steal it?
-No. -[ Chuckles ]
-We're in Geneva.
So you've sold some of the
most impressive works in history.
How has this all come about?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Is it normal for
someone to be involved
in both the storage
and the dealing of art?
Do you use the information
that you gain in the dealing?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So the all-important question,
how did you meet Dmitry?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how did you
become his art dealer?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-So far, so good.
But I was wondering how Bouvier
is going to defend his ramping
up of prices by tens of millions
from one day to the next.
And the fact he sent
Rybolovlev e-mails
where he created
fictional sellers
who won't drop their price,
and want payment immediately,
when he was in fact
the seller himself.
So is it legitimate to
buy art work for one price
and then dramatically increase
the price of it the next day?
For example, you bought
the Rothko for 80 million,
and you sold it for 140 million.
-Yes.
[ Speaking in French ]
-So how about these
e-mails where you're saying
the seller won't go below 200,
but you're in fact that seller?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Obviously one of the
accusations Dmitry had
is that you agreed
to 2% commission.
Is that not true?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how did it all go wrong?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-According to court documents,
Dmitry's wife Elena
filed for divorce
after becoming
tired of his infidelities.
She accused Dmitry
of transferring assets
to overseas trusts to
keep them out of her reach.
This included his rapidly
increasing art collection,
a $95 million mansion
bought from President Trump,
and a private Greek island.
-[ Speaking in French ]
"No."
-After this theatrical ambush,
Yves was charged with
fraud and money laundering.
Dmitry then issued court orders
freezing Yves' assets
across the globe.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how much have
you spent on lawyers
over the last few years?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Fuck. [ Chuckles ]
Will you ever bow
down to Dmitry?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-So you could say that Yves is
just a very clever businessman
who took advantage of
a market that allows it.
I can't imagine that
Dmitry is this naive oligarch
that he's painting
himself out to be.
I don't know if
"naive" and "oligarch"
can go in the same sentence.
Yves talks all the
big fighting talk,
but he's basically up
against a Russian oligarch,
and that must be
pretty terrifying.
♪♪
-Yves claims there's a
massive operation so that Dmitry
pays his ex-wife less money
in the divorce settlement.
-That's completely nonsense,
and just shows again
how vivid Yves
Bouvier's imagination is.
As I said, this matter
spans a period of 10 years,
so it's -- it's completely
unrelated to divorce,
which was peacefully
settled in 2015.
-Yves says that 2%
commission wouldn't even pay
for storage alone,
so that that would never
have been the case.
-Yeah, that has
been his contention,
which is absolutely unsupported.
It's complete fantasy.
-So were there any
contracts ever signed
between them at the
beginning of the relationship?
-It's a complex question because
there were some contracts,
but in terms of the overall
relationship that they had,
it is evidenced by the numerous
e-mails and exchanges they had.
-Bouvier faces an enemy
who has very deep pockets.
Rybolovlev sold his share
in Russia's biggest fertilizer
company for billions of dollars,
and quickly got his
money out of the country.
-Dmitry Rybolovlev
comes from the bloody fog
of the '90s in Russia.
But he was one of those
guys who managed to rise
and to actually
expand from Russia.
A lot of the investments
are done abroad
because in Russia their mind-set
is that there's always
going to be someone
who wants to take from them.
And they want the safety
of the western societies.
By buying the football
team in Monaco,
just like in the case of art,
football gives them access.
They get recognition
from the general public.
You are able to put your
foot strongly into a society.
-The way Dmitry used his
football team to curry favor
with the principality's elite
radically changed
his battle with Bouvier.
I've flown to Dmitry's kingdom,
the tax evasion
theme park of Monaco.
There seems to be
police everywhere.
I've been stopped twice.
So we're having
to do it on iPhone,
and hopefully they won't
have any problem with that.
So I walked past La
Belle Epoque earlier.
I'm a bit nervous about
getting the big camera out,
so I posed as an influencer.
After Dmitry had settled here,
he quickly engaged
in an orchestrated
and opulent gifting campaign,
aimed at politicians
and police officers.
These gifts included
helicopter rides,
holidays, really expensive wine
and tickets to AS Monaco games.
And when his battle
with Bouvier erupted,
he called in his favors.
This led to a massive
scandal dubbed "Monacogate."
So I'm about to
meet Gerard Davet,
who is a journalist
for Le Monde.
He broke the story
of "Monacogate."
At the heart of this
story was a DVD
that exposed some pretty
embarrassing texts for Dmitry.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So what were these
texts with the police?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Dmitry, with the help
of his lawyer Tatiana,
had managed to buy the loyalty
of Monaco's justice minister,
and the police force.
He then allegedly
used this power to get
Yves Bouvier arrested.
Tatiana says she was
operating within the law.
So what is the court case
against Dmitry in Monaco?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-It's been a huge embarrassment
for the prince
and Monaco itself.
The court case hasn't
been decided yet,
but some of the people
involved in Monacogate
have had to resign.
So it's not looking good.
In December 2019,
a Monaco judge threw out all
charges against Yves Bouvier.
What is Dmitry's response to the
reported charges and allegations
made against him
relating to Monacogate?
-Obviously he strongly denies
any of these accusations,
which are completely false,
and they are being examined
now by the Monaco Justice,
and we look forward to
being vindicated in court.
-The Monaco police chief
sent a text to Dmitry saying,
"I assure you of my loyalty."
And then there was another
text, just before Yves' arrest,
Tatiana sent to the
chief superintendent
and head of Monaco Police,
"He will come on the 25th
of February in the morning,
that's certain.
Plan A should remain in place."
What would Dmitry's
defense be to those?
-So this is
privileged information
which already is a problem
because in principle,
all the information
that the lawyer has
about a case in privileged.
Second, these text messages
have shown relationship
between lawyer and
the Monaco authorities,
and as such,
they are not illegal.
It's not illegal to
discuss a case
with a prosecutor
or with the police.
-And what about the gifts to
people in positions of power?
-First you have to wonder
whether they were big gifts
given, that's
the first question.
And second, you
have to look into --
into what Monaco
would say about this.
I can't comment
as a Swiss lawyer.
But the -- the idea
that there would have
been corruption action
on the part of our
client is strongly denied
because it's -- it just
simply is not the case.
-Dmitry was willing to use
dirty tactics in his fight with Yves,
but it seems Yves isn't
so squeaky clean himself.
There are many other
accusations doing the rounds.
Yves Bouvier has told
me his side of the story,
but there are all these
other things that
Yves been accused of.
It's not just court
cases with Dmitry.
He's been accused
by the Swiss authorities
of evading taxes
of up to $360 million.
He's also been accused
of selling stolen Picassos.
In 2015, Yves faced
charges of hiding the fact
that two Picasso
paintings sold to Dmitry
were stolen from
Picasso's stepdaughter.
She claimed the paintings
were for Bouvier to store, not sell.
The case is ongoing.
And then we find that
he's also been accused
of selling forgeries
by the infamous
Wolfgang Beltracchi.
His selling of a fake
by Wolfgang Beltracchi
is another curious
episode in Yves' career.
He forged over 1,000 paintings,
fooled experts across the globe,
and there are
hundreds of his works
still said to be in circulation.
So this is shaping my
opinion a bit differently,
because there's -- obviously
there's other stuff going on,
not just what he's telling me.
I've come to Paris to
meet Bouvier one last time
and ask him about these other
court cases he's been fighting.
-Romantic walk.
-It's a very
romantic walk, Yves.
Lovely day for it.
So I read there's been
recent charges of tax evasion
in Switzerland.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So the case of
the stolen Picassos,
was that also Dmitry's work?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-How about the accusations
of selling the forgeries
by Wolfgang Beltracchi?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So how many court
cases have you won?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-So a lot.
-Yes.
-So what has it felt like to
be accused of being a criminal
and had your name smeared in
all the media around the world?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-In your feud with Dmitry,
have you ever felt scared?
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Bouvier's side
gave us these images
which apparently show
people following him.
They claim it is
evidence that Dmitry
is using extra-judicial
tactics of intimidation.
So, Yves claims that
he's been followed
and has had phones hacked.
-Well, that's his allegation.
I don't have any
knowledge of it,
and so I don't know if he has
many enemies which may do that.
That's -- That's something
that you have to ask him.
-Is it a personal
vendetta at this point?
-Not at all.
It's -- That's what
Bouvier's trying to make
out of this matter,
and he's trying to
make it very personal.
-Why has Yves won
so many of his cases?
-He hasn't won
any of these cases.
That's what he
pretends everywhere.
There has never been a decision
on -- on the matter as such.
And basically everything
now, on the merits of the --
the dispute, is to be
dealt with in Switzerland.
-Yves still faces one
further court battle
with Dmitry in Geneva.
We walked to his
Parisian gallery
from which he's
now trying to stage
his grand comeback
into the art world.
-Here is my gallery.
The biggest one on the road.
[ Laughter ]
-Oh, wow.
It's a big space.
-Yes.
-How long have you had it?
Avec Le Louvre.
-Very close.
-Yes.
-So at least you're able
to operate in this gallery
as an art dealer.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-They claim that
the "Bouvier Affair"
has been a watershed
moment for pushing for regulation
in the art world.
-[ Speaking in French ]
-Any regrets?
-[ Speaking in French ]
♪♪
-In the end, it's
a massive fight
between a multi-millionaire
and a multi-billionaire,
both of whom feel persecuted,
despite one owning a
gallery opposite the Louvre,
and the other owning
a football team
and an island and
a real estate empire.
We can't say who's
right or wrong in this,
but what the Bouvier
Affair has exposed
is how the art market's
culture of greed,
combined with its
billions of dollars
and total lack of
stringent regulation,
leaves it vulnerable to
widespread exploitation.
-The problem is is
that the regulations
that are already on the
books are not being enforced.
There just isn't enough
funding for law enforcement,
for prosecutors, for
-- for police officers
to enforce the laws that
apply to the art world.
-Do you think
anything's actually
going to change
in the art world?
-I keep warning the art market
that if they don't
police themselves,
they're going to have
it imposed on them.
They're going to
find the government
breathing down their necks.
-Wouldn't that put
you out of a job?
-I don't believe I'll
ever be put out of a job.
There's always going
to be people stealing art.
There's always going to
be people committing fraud
against others in the art world.
I think that there's a lot
more work in the future.
-With a steady trickle of new
rules around client identity
and money laundering
now coming into force,
it remains to be seen whether
the art world will reign on
as the most secretive
market on earth.
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪
♪♪