34 Haute-Corse

34 Haute-Corse

It was Ian Harris, a minor collector with a taste for Dutch portraiture, who originally hit upon the idea. He referred to

it, innocuously, as "the art strategy." Not art as an investment, but art as a means of laundering and concealing wealth and,

more important, of conveying wealth from its country of origin to offshore tax havens. It was made possible by the art world's

long-standing tradition of secrecy. Nearly $70 billion worth of paintings and other objets d'art changed hands each year,

most of it privately. Buyers typically did not know the identity of sellers, sellers did not know the identity of buyers,

and government regulators and tax collectors knew almost nothing at all.

But exploiting that inherent vulnerability, explained Philippe Lambert, required a facility like the Geneva Freeport, which

permitted customers to store their art in climate-controlled vaults rented by anonymous shell companies. Under the lax rules

of the Freeport, the shell company was not required to disclose its beneficial owner. He could purchase a $200 million painting

at auction in New York or London and avoid all taxation merely by shipping it to the Freeport. Furthermore, the secret owner

of the shell company could sell his $200 million painting at a profit within the confines of the Freeport with no tax implications.

"The Freeport always had a shady side to it," said Lambert. "But Harris Weber & Company turned the place into a six-hundred-thousand-square-foot washing machine."

"What was Galerie Ricard's role?" asked Gabriel.

"Ricard was a washerwoman, nothing more. He changed the loads, pushed the buttons, and got a tiny slice of each transaction.

But there were always fights about money. He believed he was underappreciated and underpaid."

For all its ingenuity, Lambert went on, the art strategy was quite simple. All it required were two anonymous limited liability

shell corporations in the British Virgin Islands, which Harris Weber created for a modest fee. The client would then purchase

a painting—at auction or privately through the auspices of a gallery—and immediately ship it to the Freeport, where it would

be placed in a vault rented by one of the shell companies. The client would then sell the painting, sometimes in a matter

of days or even hours, at Galerie Ricard, under conditions of strict secrecy. The proceeds of the sale would then be funneled

into the second anonymous shell company, with the money deposited at one of Harris Weber's partner Caribbean banks. There

it would remain invisible to the tax authorities of the client's host country. He was free to invest the money in equities

or commodities—tax free, of course—or he could use it to acquire valuable assets such as private jets, yachts, and luxury

homes.

As a result of the scheme, several hundred billion dollars' worth of private wealth was funneled offshore and buried beneath layers of corporate shells and trusts. Harris Weber & Company and its stable of ethically challenged lawyers received hundreds of millions in legal fees and commissions. Still not satisfied with their earnings, they decided to further leverage the art strategy by going into the art business themselves. With a portion of their profits, they acquired a small but extremely valuable collection of high-priced paintings, which they used primarily for purposes of money laundering—sham "sales" that generated hundreds of millions' worth of additional commissions and profits. They stored the paintings in the Geneva Freeport under the supervision of Galerie Ricard and managed the collection through an anonymous limited liability shell company based in the British Virgin Islands.

"OOC Group, Limited?"

" Oui , Monsieur Allon. It stands for Oil on Canvas. But there were several other shell companies and layered trusts standing between

OOC Group and Harris Weber. It would be extremely difficult for anyone to piece together the puzzle."

Unless, of course, a problem arose with one of the paintings in the firm's inventory—a problem that would allow a plaintiff

in a legal proceeding to penetrate Harris Weber's records through the process of discovery. This was the situation confronting

the firm when Trevor Robinson woke Lambert from a sound sleep early one morning in mid-December. Robinson was on the slopes

of Chamonix. Lambert was at the villa on Virgin Gorda.

"And the problem?"

"The Picasso," said Lambert. "Harris Weber acquired it ten years ago in a private sale brokered by Christie's in London. Professor

Blake had somehow uncovered details of the transaction, including the name of the buyer."

"Oil on Canvas Group, Limited?"

Lambert nodded.

"But how did Trevor Robinson know what she had discovered?"

"He didn't go into the details. He just wanted me to find out whether the professor really had the goods. I hacked into her

phone and computer and grabbed everything, including her version of the painting's provenance. It listed the name of the original

owner as well as the name of the rightful heir."

"Dr. Emanuel Cohen."

" Oui , Monsieur Allon."

Lambert also discovered the name of the man with whom Professor Blake was having an extramarital affair: Leonard Bradley,

a wealthy trader and art aficionado who lived with his wife and three children in a clifftop home near Land's End in Cornwall.

Lambert forwarded the information to Trevor Robinson, along with hundreds of intimate text messages and geolocation data pinpointing

the likely location of their trysts. It was Lambert's assumption that the former British spy would use the damaging information

merely to pressure Professor Blake into amending the findings of her inquiry. Trevor Robinson, however, had other ideas.

"He wanted me to send Professor Blake a text message from Bradley's number."

"And the nature of the message?"

"Bradley needed to discuss a matter of the utmost urgency."

"Mrs. Bradley had found out about the affair?"

"That was the implication."

"What time did Bradley want to see her?"

"Five p.m."

"The cliffs above Porthchapel Beach?"

" Oui ."

"What did you do?"

"I sent the text," said Lambert. "And two hours later Professor Blake was dead."

***

Emanuel Cohen died three days later, the victim of an apparent fall down the steps of the rue Chappe in Montmartre. Lambert knew nothing of the doctor's fate. He was hard at work on another matter, an overzealous Norwegian tax official who was targeting one of the firm's most important clients. Lambert gave Trevor Robinson a mountain of compromising material—the Norwegian had a weakness for child pornography—and Robinson gave Lambert his next assignment.

"Hack the Geneva Freeport?"

Lambert nodded.

"Did Robinson tell you why?"

"The problem with the Picasso had resurfaced."

This time, though, the threat was internal. Edmond Ricard had received a lucrative offer for the Picasso that he wanted to

accept. The prospective buyer, interestingly enough, was Anna Rolfe, the world-renowned violinist. She intended to store the

painting in the Geneva Freeport under Ricard's supervision. He was confident the canvas would remain under lock and key and

out of public view for the foreseeable future.

"I assume Harris Weber & Company was opposed to the deal?"

"Vehemently."

"Why didn't the partners simply tell Ricard that the painting wasn't on the market?"

"They did."

"And?"

"Ricard agreed to withdraw from the negotiations. But I was monitoring his phone, and I knew that he had no intention of backing

out of the deal. It was to be a trade rather than an outright sale. The Picasso in exchange for works by Van Gogh, Modigliani,

and Cézanne. Ricard planned to sell the three paintings and pocket the money. He was confident his partners at Harris Weber

would never find out about it."

"Because his partners intended to leave the Picasso in the Freeport forever."

" Exactement , Monsieur Allon. As far as the firm was concerned, Ricard's double-dealing was the final straw."

Lambert was confident in his ability to crack the Freeport's network undetected. Nevertheless, out of an abundance of caution,

he carried out the hack from a hastily rented apartment in Cannes. Alone in his darkened room overlooking the rue d'Antibes,

he was monitoring the Freeport's security cameras when a man with an art transport case entered the stubby office block at

4 Route du Grand-Lancy, home of Galerie Ricard. Fifteen minutes later, after the man had left the building, Lambert made a

single keystroke, and six months' worth of Freeport security video vanished into thin air.

"Or so you thought," said Gabriel, and clicked the trackpad on his laptop.

Lambert glared at the screen, then at Ingrid. "How were you able to resurrect it?"

"Quite easily, actually."

They watched as the man with the art transport case stepped from the elevator on the third floor and requested admission to

Galerie Ricard.

"What did you think was going to happen next?" asked Gabriel.

"Robinson told me that he was going to remove the Picasso from the gallery before Ricard could complete the transaction with

Anna Rolfe."

"Remove?"

"Robinson's word, not mine."

"When did you realize that he had made you an accomplice in yet another murder?"

It wasn't until the next morning, when Lambert read about Ricard's killing in Nice-Matin . Alarmed, he rang Trevor Robinson in Monaco and informed him that he was going to take a nice long vacation somewhere far away. Brazil, perhaps. Or better yet, Sri Lanka. Instead, he barricaded himself in the apartment in Cannes and began grabbing as many files from Harris Weber & Company as he could lay his hands on. His plan, to the extent he had one, was to use the material to ensure his survival when the day came that Trevor Robinson decided that he was no longer of use to the firm.

"That day arrived much sooner than I expected. Fortunately, Monsieur Allon, you were there to prevent me from being killed."

"Don't thank me, thank my associate. She's the one who traced the hack to that apartment in Cannes."

Lambert looked at Ingrid and asked, "How?"

She rolled her eyes. "I only hope you covered your tracks a little better when you hacked into Harris Weber's database."

"I did."

"Find anything interesting?" asked Gabriel.

Lambert picked up one of the external hard drives he had taken from the apartment. "A directory of every shell company ever

created by the firm. But I'm afraid it's useless without the names of the beneficial owners."

"The clients, you mean?"

" Oui , Monsieur Allon."

"And where would we find those?"

"All of the firm's sensitive attorney-client information is stored offline on an external hard drive. And the hard drive is

locked in a safe inside the firm's offices in Monaco."

"How much data are we talking about?" asked Ingrid.

"Three terabytes, at least."

"Does the safe have a door on it?"

"Of course."

"That's a relief," said Ingrid. "Combination or keypad?"