February 04, 2022

Treasury Urges Closer Watch on Money Laundering in Fine Art

Source: The Associated Press

Journalist: Fatima Hussein

Fine art isn’t just nice to look at — it’s also attractive to criminals trying to launder money, finance terrorism and trade illegal drugs and arms. And the Treasury Department wants art dealers and financiers to do something about that.

The agency issued a 40-page report Friday recommending that financial firms and art dealers set up an information-sharing database to track how sales of fine art are linked to bad actors who make anonymous purchases.

The need to monitor art sales has become more complicated and necessary with the recent rise in sales of digital assets known as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.

Michael Greenwald, a former Treasury official and adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, called the report “a critical first step for there to be a regulatory structure around the broader art market,” which he called one of the last unregulated markets.

Read the entire story and more from The Associated Press.

Author

  • Michael Greenwald

    Member, CNAS Board of Advisors & Adjunct Senior Fellow, Energy, Economics and Security, Global Head, Financial Innovation and Digital Assets & Head, Global Executive Relations, Amazon Web Services

    Michael B. Greenwald is the Global Head of Financial Innovation and Digital Assets at Amazon Web Services (AWS). He is also heads up Global Executive Relations for the company...