Not a Pretty Picture Painted of Art Dealer Tied to Poker, Sports Betting Probe
The Business Insider of Australia gave the low down on New York-based art dealer Helly Nahmad, a Lebanese-American indicted this week in connection with an international high stakes poker/sports betting ring.
It ain’t all that pretty either.
Megan Willett writes:
This is not his first brush with the law. In 2011, the grandson of a Jewish art dealer sued Nahmad, asking him to return a $25 million Modigliani painting that was allegedly stolen and sold by the Nazis during WWII, according to The Daily Mail.
His recent trouble with the FBI this week only adds to the family’s controversial name in the art world. In a Forbes feature on the family from 2007, multiple sources in the art world claimed that the Nahmads did not stay true to their word on deals and were hard to work with due to “screaming fights in the gallery.”
Nahmad’s gallery was raided this past Monday as part of an ongoing investigation into a high stakes poker-sports betting ring with alleged ties to the Russian Mafia.
There is little doubt billionaire Nahmad is “lawyering up”, probably with some of the best known defense attorneys money can buy. After all, he owns a $9 million penthouse in prestigious Bal Harbor, Florida as well as nearly the entire 51st floor of the Trump Tower.
Courthouse News reports:
Forbes called the Nahmad family "one of the richest and most powerful art-dealing dynasties in the world" and estimated its fortune at $1.75 billion as of last year.
The family has amassed an estimated 300 Picassos worth $900 million and about 4,500 other works by artists such as Monet and Miro, according to The New York Times.
A producer for the upcoming Showtime drama “Ray Donovan” along with the so-called “Princess of Poker” Molly Bloom and a handful of poker pros were all named in the indictment and it was not immediately known whether further charges will be handed down.
This was the second high profile gambling bust in a little under a week. On April 10, federal authorities indicted 34 people who had ties to Panama-based Legends Sports.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
