Porters auction Drouot caught "stealing from the dead"
ARTinvestment.RU   15 марта 2016

Police have charged 49 movers-"savicev" scale systematic plunder of heirless and other property with use of office position

Porters auction houses regularly privorovyvat. This terrified the British newspaper Independent, but for France, this practice is already an open secret. Although sometimes the scale of the abuse are such that there is a scandal.

this time your portion of the charges received porters auction French conglomerate Drouot. Historically they form a closed professional community called "saleucami" (the Savoyards) by geographic origin or "red collar" (cols rouges) by the color of their uniform. "Savoury" work with Drouot for over 180 years. Anything can happen. But this time, police have charged 49 movers in large-scale systematic plunder of property with use of office position.

Deny it is meaningless: the police found in warehouses "savicev" 250 tons of antique newchance — from relatively inexpensive decorative and applied arts objects, to sketches by Picasso and paintings by Gustave Courbet and Marc Chagall. In a warehouse in the suburbs of Paris found almost a truckload of belongings of the late MIME Marcel Marceau. In General, acted with panache. The scheme, according to journalists, was simple. When the owner died and his property was to be sold at Drouot, transporting valuables from the apartment were engaged in movers. And some-что it from sticking to your hands, "shrinkage-утряска", "fight". If-то from attentive heirs was noise, then the subject quickly, "were", they offered apologies for a technical error and scandals avoided. Then things slowly sold out "red collar" on the same auctions or privately. The main thing is not to gamble with. But there were some misfires. So, in 2009, one of the "red collar" was caught selling the work of Courbet, who disappeared six years earlier. The attacker was expected to fetch for this thing 100 000 euros.

representatives of the auction house Drouot deny that knew-либо abuse "savicev", but what-то four auctioneers still accused of collusion with the movers.

Material prepared by Vladimir Bogdanov, AI

Source: independent.co.uk, artinvestment.ru