fine art is money laundering and insurance scams.   ow-money-laundering-works-art-world > there also seems to be plenty of instances where art has played a role in the act of money laundering. consider that when the mexican government passed a law in the early 2010s to require more information about buyers, and how much cash could be spent on a single piece of art, the market cratered, as sales dipped 70 percent in less than a year. many believed that was because mexican cartel rings had previously been the biggest buyers in the market. yes, there are small-scale markets for art, and there are dupes who buy art as a status symbol, but that's not the purpose of the majority of the art market. it's organized crime, largely with full government complicity.
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