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Comment by JacobAldridge | Hacker News Reader

With apologies for not remembering the article I read, to provide a source…

I have read that stolen masterpieces are sometimes used as currency for (high level) criminals. Similar to how Tide bottles were (still are?) used as a value exchange within homeless communities, “I owe you $X00,000 but would you accept this Picasso instead?” passes some stolen art around at a large discount to “market value”.

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But why would that Picasso have any value? You can't show it to others and it's difficult to resell it. And if the cops find out that you have it - they will confiscate it.

For the same reason normal paintings have value. You could just by a high-quality print indistinguishable from the original.

You can resell normal paintings and show them to others.

In many cases there's also a reward for any information regarding the stolen artwork. So that makes it even harder to resell those artworks.

Depends on what level of criminal you are. I’m sure there’s some rich criminal boss in Belarus that could certainly get away with displaying it. Maybe later he’ll sell it to Putin for a literal ton of gold bars. Right now the Russians are paying debt by literally flying around airplanes full of gold. Who could do anything about it?

The world is a big place and the rule of law we trust to just work in the West is certainly not the norm everywhere.

True. They could get away with it in countries that aren't friendly with the West and that don't extradite. But the problem is that they could no longer travel to the West. Oligarchs that aren't being sanctioned and aren't being wanted for anything else would probably want to avoid that. Especially now - when the situation in Russia is unstable.

Ostentatious displays of wealth. The well connected often want you to know how well connected they are.

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