Panama Papers scandal, also nazi art robbery scandal?

Seated man leaning on a stick, by Amedeo Modigliani

Translated from NOS TV in the Netherlands:

“Van Gogh and Rembrandt traded through tax havens’

Today, 09:53

Works by internationally famous artists such as Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Matisse are often traded through tax havens. This report Dutch dailies Trouw and Het Financieele Dagblad and foreign media, based on the Panama Papers.

The aim is in many cases to keep the transactions out of sight of, inter alia, the tax authorities. Also, laundering money through these opaque art market deals is relatively easy.

According to the media it appears from the records of the Panamanian legal services Mossack Fonseca that this business facilitates trade in top art.

Looted in WWII

By the publication of the Panama Papers, according to the media who have browsed the Mossack Fonseca administration, it may now be possible for a Jewish family to recover a painting looted in World War II.

The well-known art owning family Nahmad has hitherto always denied they owned the painting “Seated man leaning on a stick” by Amedeo Modigliani. The Panama Papers show that reality is otherwise. The family used a construction via Panama to hide the fact that they now own the painting.

The NOS report might have added that according to Wikipedia, German-Panamanian Jürgen Mossack, co-founder of the Mossack Fonseca tax dodging business, is the son of an officer in Adolf Hitler’s SS, who after World War II fled to Panama, and later applied for a CIA job to spy on Fidel Castro’s Cuba.