KUALA LUMPUR – Four paintings by world-renowned artists linked to the misappropriation of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds are in the process of being repatriated to Malaysia and expected to arrive on April 6.<\/p>\n
The senior director of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission\u2019s (MACC) special operations division, Datuk Mohamad Zamri Zainul Abidin, said the artworks were L\u2019Ecuy\u00e8re et les clowns (1961) by Pablo Picasso, Montmartre (1934) by Maurice Utrillo, Etude pour femme couch\u00e9e (1948) by Balthus and Composition (1953) by Joan Miro.<\/p>\n
He said all the paintings were owned by 1MDB\u2019s former lead counsel Jasmine Loo, with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirming their links to 1MDB.<\/p>\n
The process of bringing the paintings back is the result of official cooperation between the MACC, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the DOJ agreed upon in Washington DC in December 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand that the paintings are currently in transit and will arrive in Putrajaya,\u201d said Mr Mohamad Zamri said when contacted.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are Loo\u2019s paintings that were held at Sotheby\u2019s Auction House… Another seven paintings remain under the custody of the renowned auction house Christie\u2019s.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the MACC would also use the Mutual Legal Assistance mechanism to bring back the remaining artworks still under Christie\u2019s custody.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on accompanying documents, the estimated value of each painting based on public auctions is as follows: the Picasso at around US$5,000 (S$6,400) to US$7,000; the Utrillo at around US$20,000 to US$30,000; the Balthus at around US$15,000 to US$20,000; and the Miro at around US$60,000 to US$80,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cOverall, the four works are estimated to be worth nearly RM500,000 (S$160,000) to more than RM600,000, making them among the most valuable art assets successfully recovered so far,\u201d he said, as reported by Bernama.<\/p>\n
Previously, it was reported that 12 paintings worth about US$30 million linked to the 1MDB scandal would be exhibited at the National Art Gallery in Kuala Lumpur.<\/p>\n
The artworks are understood to potentially be displayed as a symbol of the country\u2019s enforcement success before any further action, including auctioning them to return funds to the government. THE STAR\/ASIA NEWS NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUALA LUMPUR – Four paintings by world-renowned artists linked to the misappropriation of 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369591,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":["post-369590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}