Hirst | Koonz is more of a pyramid scheme of confidence tricksters, limited supply, envy, FOMO and other factors - the ego of those with money to burn and wanting to make a statement has play here.

Money laundering itself in the art market is duller, by design, it trades on lesser regulation and inspection of the funds bought to sales and auctions and often uses decoupling mechanisms, illegal funds -> art -> inflated values -> legitimate money via loans backed by art as collateral, etc.

Searching a bit I found two articles that seem okay on quick skim reading:

* https://alessa.com/blog/art-money-laundering-explained/

* https://www.dentons.com/en/insights/articles/2024/march/11/t...

The documentary Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (2020) explains the concept and process better than I could hope to do myself, so to do your question justice, I would advise you to seek it out and to watch it. Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) is adjacent to the topics raised and is also worth a watch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_You_Look:_A_True_Story_Ab...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop

Freeport facilities are part and parcel to enabling these complex businesses arrangements, and they are mentioned in an aside in the documentary Made You Look; the Geneva Freeport being one of, of not the, world’s oldest and most important such facility is called out specifically if I remember correctly, or maybe one in Antwerp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Freeport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-trade_zone

It is relatively straightforward to money launder through $1 million or so private sales (e.g. random "Qi Baishi" paintings). The pieces are low profile enough to not attract attention, but expensive enough for overhead to be low. The highly publicized auctions the internet declares as "money laundering" are the least likely to be actual money laundering.

Art has a subjective value. If you want to legitimise large amount of money, buy a piece of art for little money, sell it to a friend for lots of money, legalize profit.