The US Justice Department has reached an agreement with Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, the former general counsel of Malaysia’s sovereign investment development fund (1MDB), to recover a $1.27 million drawing by Pablo Picasso that had sold in May 2014 at Christie’s.
The original forfeiture complaint filed by federal prosecutors last August alleged that Loo purchased Picasso’s Trois femmes nues et buste d’homme (1969) from Christie’s using misappropriated 1MDB funds from a bond sale underwritten by Goldman Sachs.
Documents reviewed by ARTnews show that Loo signed an affidavit consenting her forfeiture of the Picasso drawing on May 27. Margaret A. Moeser, chief of the US Justice Department’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, submitted the consent judgement of forfeiture on July 17, and it was approved by Judge Dale S. Fischer on July 22.
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Fischer also recently formally ordered the forfeiture of artworks by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Diane Arbus that had been connected approved with Low Taek Jho, a former top buyer at international auctions and the alleged mastermind of the looting of Malaysia’s 1MDB fund.
The Justice Department did not specify which works by those artists were included in the order, but a document filed by federal prosecutors on June 14 said that Low, his family members, and his entities had forfeited van Gogh’s La Maison de Vincent à Arles, Picasso’s Nature morte au crâne de taureau, Basquiat’s Redman One, Arbus’s Boy with the Toy Hand Grenade, and Monet’s Saint-Georges majeur, as well as the €25.3 million in proceeds from the sale of Monet’s Nymphéas held in an escrow account at UBS. On July 22, Fischer approved a judgment for the forfeiture of the van Gogh and Monet paintings, as well as the €25.3 million from the sale of the second Monet work.
Bloomberg News reported that Fischer also ordered the forfeiture of three “flawless” diamonds Low bought for his mother using “criminal proceeds” from the 1MDB funds. The US government valued the jewelry at approximately $1.17 million for the 7.35-carat ring and approximately $628,000 for the earrings. The items were created by Lorraine Schwartz, a New York–based designer popular with celebrities like Beyoncé and Adele.