just as they had arrived from Highland Business before sanctions. Steamort then wired funds to BALTZER, which paid the auction house and took title of the purchase. All four auction houses considered Mr. Baltser the principal purchaser, rather than an agent for a buyer, and never asked for whom he was purchasing the art. Any client due diligence was performed only on Mr. Baltser and not his undisclosed clients, satisfying the voluntary AML policies at the auction houses.
Highland Ventures purchased a painting through a private art dealer. The funds used to purchase René Magritte's La Poitrine for $7.5 million in May 2014 through a private art dealer followed a different path. In this transaction, Highland Ventures took title to the painting and was listed on the invoice as the buyer. Anna Wilkes, an employee of Mr. Omelnitski's Markom Group, signed on behalf of Highland Ventures as its Director. The funds used to pay for the painting were wired to the private dealer from a company named Advantage Alliance. The Subcommittee traced those funds to a company called Senton Holdings. An investigation by a financial institution–produced to the Subcommittee–determined Senton Holdings was owned by Arkady Rotenberg, linking him through the chain of wire transfers to the purchase of the painting.
Art was shipped to Germany for storage. La Poitrine, like much of the art traced to companies linked to the Rotenbergs, was shipped to a storage facility in Germany called Hasenkamp. The Subcommittee contacted Hasenkamp and was told the art was originally stored there under the name Highland Business; no individual was named. Later, a company named Taide Connoisseur Selection took over the contract to store the art at Hasenkamp. The only individual named on Taide Connoisseur Selection's website was Mr. Omelnitski.
In August 2019, during the course of the Subcommittee's investigation, the Taide Connoisseur Selection account at Hasenkamp was closed and all art stored under the account was shipped to Moscow.
Art purchases linked to the Rotenberg shell companies totaled millions of dollars. In total, the Subcommittee traced funds for over $18 million in art purchased in the United States from March 2014 to November 2014, both at auction houses and through private sales back to shell companies that appeared to be funded or owned by the Rotenbergs.
Sotheby's agreed to sell Brucke II for Mr. Baltser during the Subcommittee's investigation. Mr. Baltser also sold paintings owned by his clients. In late 2018, he attempted to sell Lyonel Feininger's Brucke II. Brucke II was originally purchased through Mr. Baltser on February 4, 2014 at an auction at Christie's in London. The painting later appeared on a list of 31 paintings sent to Christie's by a BALTZER employee, who stated that the list represented the collection of one of Mr. Baltser's clients. The Subcommittee traced 16 paintings on the list purchased in the United
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