Thread by @DawsonSField

NY state AG sues Sothebys for helping a client avoid millions of dollars of sales tax on art deals...

Interesting...
#ButNothingsHappening

https://twitter.com/ICIJorg/status/1326123943107899392

I am really wondering who this 'collector' is. Described as a "he" resides outside the US but has apartments in NYC. Runs a successful shipping business, I know a few of my friends have dug into shipping companies but I don't know the players...
courthousenews.com/wp-content/upl…

His company Porsal Equities, LTD, was incorporated in the British Virgin Islands & looks like a typical shell company. The collector was the one listed as running the company. Southeby enabled him from 2010-2015.
The company paid a $10.5M penalty in November 2018.

So it looks like he flipped on Sotheby based on everything in the allegations by NY state...
35 purchases worth $27M over 5 years with 3 fake resale certifications.

So he shell company settled with the authorities but no mention of charges or settlement by the collector who runs a successful shipping business.

Curious...

It looks like Sotheby will have little choice but to confess & blame it all on their employees while providing the #receipts.
A deal that might expose all of Sotheby's illegal client deals with adequate cooperation...

The document quotes lots of emails, so they already have some of the #receipts which explain Sotheby's employees were willing participants in the fraud to earn client loyalty...

The client manager was from the same home country as the collector. The collector's shipping business was successful because that country relies heavily on imports... Clues but nothing definitive...

KCM even offered to let the customer's kids stay at her place for Rosh Hashana...

Is the shipping magnate from Israel? It at least seems to document the customer is Jewish. Clues, more clues...

Client was also a customer at Christie's Auction House & played them against each other to get them to cut costs on his purchases by hook or by crook.

Another section said he liked to collect a certain Latin American artist, but I know less about artists than I do shipping magnates. So that clue doesn't help me but it might connect a dot!

Looks like the shipping magnate is probably Eyal Ofer. Israeli, lives in Monaco, has an apartment in the most expensive building in Manhattan & he owns the building.

He & his brother inherited shipping, mining, oil & gas businesses & one of the largest art collections from dad!

Gave £10 million to a Museum in the UK which named a flor after him.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyal_Ofer

He also helped fund Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee celebration in 2012.

I guess it is good to buy respectability...

Seems Eyal has also been an investor in NYC real estate, initially as a silent investor in the 1980s & now owning billions in property.
therealdeal.com/issues_article…

His brother Idan Ofer has invested some of his money into a couple of soccer teams in Portugal & Spain...
He spent the 80s in Hong Kong building his company into the largest tanker fleet in the world.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idan_Ofer

Idan was also caught hiring Black Cube to track politicians for oppo research material to blackmail them into tax policies he wanted in Israel...

Idan also donated money to the JFK School of Government at Harvard & the London Business School...