A Picasso and a Miro are among four works on show, representing a fraction of the US$4.5 billion looted from Malaysia’s 1MDB fund
Traced through Sotheby’s auction house and flown back to Malaysia on April 14, the canvases arrived in wooden crates and were unpacked under controlled lighting and temperature conditions supervised by the National Art Gallery.
Their combined estimated value – about US$198,125 – is modest by the standards of the scandal that produced them. Yet their symbolism is anything but.
Together, they represent one strand in a web of corruption that US investigators say looted more than US$4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund between 2009 and 2014, funnelling the proceeds into luxury real estate, superyachts, Hollywood film deals and the art collections of the well-connected.
Source: News - South China Morning Post
