“How do you launder such huge amounts of money?” Look at art auctions, they can’t even confirm Leonardo Da Vinci actually painted this yet it still sold for $450mil…

Christie’s sells long-lost Salvator Mundi, artwork billed as ‘biggest discovery of the 21st century’, for $400m plus auction house premium

Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France more than 500 years ago, has sold at Christie’s in New York for $450.3m, including auction house premium, shattering the world record for any work of art sold at auction.
The sale generated a sustained 20 minutes of tense telephone bidding as the auctioneer Jussi Pylkkänen juggled rival suitors before a packed crowd of excited onlookers in the salesroom. At one point, Pylkkänen remarked: “Historic moment, we’ll wait” as the the bidding went back and forth, pausing at just over $200m as it rose to break the auction record.

 At one point, a telephone bidder jumped in, pushing the price from $332m to $350m. The bidding then resumed: $353m, $355m. A jump to $370. A jump to $400m.


“Thank you all for your bidding,” said Pylkkänen. “Four hundred million selling here at Christie’s. The piece is sold.”
The saleroom erupted in cheers and applause.
The auction house would not reveal the identity of the buyer or even the region from which they came.
Christie’s CEO, Guillaume Cerutti, said he did not know whether the buyer would reveal themselves. “I cannot say if he or she will want to be public.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/nov/15/leonardo-da-vinci-salvator-mundi-auction