The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World
by
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian
Published 7 Oct 2024
The goods in these zones remained in a suspended state: physically sedentary yet legally in transit. Like Konrad Witz’s painting of Christ on Lac Léman, an object in the Geneva Freeport appears before us but casts no shadow. The facility is a lot like the Hotel California: objects check in, but they never need to leave. * * * • • • Yves Bouvier, once known to the world as the “freeport king,” is a thin man with graying blond hair, blue eyes, a wicked smile, and the tweaky anxiety of a mosquito. He is a chain-smoker, a tea drinker, and a self-professed workaholic accustomed to putting in eighteen-hour days. The multivitamins on his office shelf and the toothbrush in his office bathroom seem to confirm this; Bouvier also has at least two and as many as five cell phones deployed at any given time, which syncopate their demands for his attention.
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Bouvier’s job, in other words, has been to lock up some of the most beautiful paintings known to man in a place where virtually no one goes. Jean Ziegler was onto something when he talked about Ali Baba’s cave being in his backyard. But in the legend, the forty thieves at least made visits to admire their treasure. At the freeport, artworks are lonely, trapped in bespoke crates under lock and key. Yves Bouvier did not exactly reinvent the freeport, but he did rebrand it. He knew, from living in Geneva, what the rich want: technology, exclusivity, walls, doors. The rich come to Geneva for a certain discretion. The rich especially like special places where normal people can’t go. Another thing about the rich: a little darkness never hurts.
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The Monetary Authority of Singapore estimated that the total amount of assets managed from the city hit US$900 billion in 2009—the highest in Asia. To quote Lee once more: “In a world where the big fish eat small fish, and the small fish eat shrimps, Singapore must become a poisonous shrimp.” Singapore was hungry, and Yves Bouvier’s warehouse—and the art “hub” he promised would come with it—was live bait. With cash to invest and an expanding client list, Bouvier met with Singapore’s Economic Development Board, which, Bouvier recalls, made getting approvals for his facility (again) “very, very efficient.” Together with some fellow European transplants, he made plans to build a little Switzerland: the architect, engineer, and security experts they hired to work on the freeport were all from home.
Big Bucks: The Explosion of the Art Market in the 21st Century
by
Georgina Adam
Published 14 Jun 2014
If the work is resold while in the freeport, the owner pays no transaction tax, and while tax is payable in a destination country once a work leaves the freeport, the work of art might have changed hands a number of times, certainly complicating the task of tax authorities. A sign of the importance of the art market for these freeports is that they regularly take booths in the major art fairs to promote their services. Yves Bouvier, the Swiss entrepreneur who is a major shareholder in the Luxembourg, Geneva and Singapore ports, denies that they are used for anything illegitimate. ‘They are the worst place to hide anything,’ he says: ‘Everything is scanned and controlled, because we have to know what we have here.’241 Nevertheless, the discreet nature of their operation is attractive.
The Enablers: How the West Supports Kleptocrats and Corruption - Endangering Our Democracy
by
Frank Vogl
Published 14 Jul 2021
Often, major works of art seem to disappear altogether. Untold numbers of art masterworks are stored in private warehouses, and their true ownership is a closely guarded secret. Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovelev reputedly owns a vast art collection, which came to light when in 2015 he sued his former art advisor and art dealer Yves Bouvier, who owned warehouses in Monte Carlo and outside of Geneva, both of which are designated duty-free zones. He alleged that he had been overcharged by $1 billion on art deals that he was involved with by inflating the purchase prices of art that he bought. The Monaco Court of Appeals dismissed all the charges against Bouvier stemming from Rybolovelev’s charges.
Billion Dollar Whale: The Man Who Fooled Wall Street, Hollywood, and the World
by
Tom Wright
and
Bradley Hope
Published 17 Sep 2018
Its dealers, from small-time auctioneers in New York, Hong Kong, or Geneva to global behemoths like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, were under no legal obligation to disclose the identity of their customers, and even they sometimes didn’t know the beneficial owner behind anonymous shell companies that bought Monets or Rothkos. While Swiss bank secrecy had been eroded, the Geneva Freeport did not have to list its clients. A Swiss art warehouse owner called Yves Bouvier, who was involved in the Geneva Freeport, in 2010 opened a similar fortress for the rich in Singapore, near Changi airport. The New York Times dubbed these entrepôts the “Cayman Islands of the art world.” Occasionally there was a chink in the armor of secrecy, like in 2013, when Swiss customs officers on a routine inspection of the Geneva Freeport impounded nine artifacts looted from Libya, Syria, and Yemen, ranging from Roman-era bas-reliefs to Greek statues.