Rolex Watches, Bitcoin Fetch High Bids at Seized Asset Auctions
Businessweek
Every year, the US Marshals Service seizes tens of millions of dollars’ worth of fun collectibles and fast rides from criminals, and then lets the general public do some bidding. Bloomberg Businessweek’s sleuthing revealed some intriguing sales.
By Michael Tobin and Amanda Chen
Illustrations by Melanie Lambrick
November 17, 2023, 6:00 AM UTC
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The US Marshals Service is the enforcement arm of the federal courts. In addition to protecting judges, tracking down fugitives and running the witness protection program, among other duties, the USMS manages criminal assets seized in connection with crimes. This is property used to commit an offense or acquired by a wrongdoer during the act.
To get rid of the seized assets, the USMS contracts with auction houses such as Gaston & Sheehan Auctioneers and National Liquidators. Auctions that include luxury watches, rare wines, artwork, gold coins and jewelry are mostly online; some—for, say, car collections—are held in person. In a 12-month period beginning on Oct. 1, 2021 (fiscal year 2022), the agency sold more than 14,000 items that were linked to crimes such as money laundering, wire fraud and drug dealing. The proceeds go to victims and other claimants as well as state and local law enforcement. The amount paid to victims and claimants in that span totaled about $506 million, though some of that payout is from sales from previous fiscal years.
Source: Bloomberg analysis of USMS data
Auction data isn’t readily aggregated for the public. But through the Freedom of Information Act, Bloomberg Businessweek requested five fiscal years’ worth of sales, just because we were curious to explore the findings. The dataset we received listed more than 25,000 items up for auction—the most recent from September 2022—and we filtered the results to include only those that fetched $5,000 or more. The data doesn’t indicate who won the auctions.
What it does show, in addition to the USMS coming into a bounty of cryptocurrency in fiscal year 2021, is that the agency’s auctions are an endpoint for schemes big and small—from the 1MDB scandal, which involved the plundering of $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund, US prosecutors say, to people using ill-gotten gains to buy houseboats. Here’s a not totally comprehensive look at some of the more interesting and expensive sales, with as much detail as we could parse from court documents and research.
2018 $12.3M
A
Rolex “Everose” gold Sky-Dweller $33k
The most expensive of the 44 Rolexes auctioned this year.
B
A collection of Hermès bags $16k
Separately, a sage-green leather Hermès handbag sold for $9,550.
C
Steinway piano $34k
The piano belonged to Johannes Marliem, a consultant who made $13 million in an alleged plot to bribe Indonesian government officials for a contract to develop the country’s biometric identification card system. (He bought the piano for $87,310, along with a $2.6 million Bugatti and $1.4 million in watches, among other items.) He died by suicide on Aug. 9, 2017, after a standoff with Los Angeles Police Department officers at his West Hollywood residence.
D
1994 Raytheon Hawker 800 $405k
The executive jet (originally purchased for $1.8 million), more than $1.8 million in cash and two yachts were seized in connection with a black market currency swapping scheme involving two Venezuelan nationals.
2019 $22.5M
E
75 gold bars $93.5k
In 2016 authorities confiscated about $157,000 in cash and the bars—likely about 1 ounce apiece—from a woman they say was involved in trafficking bulk quantities of marijuana from California to Florida. A judge sentenced the woman, Josephine Quan Anh Bui, to 15 months in prison.
F
Twelve pairs of Christian Louboutin shoes $6k
G
Rolex President, ref. 218238 $35k
The most expensive Rolex auctioned this year. A separate bundle of three sold for just under $45,000.
H
Dracula lobby card $18k
Frankenstein lobby card $41k
These were early marketing tools used to promote upcoming films at grand movie theaters. (Both premiered in 1931.)
I
2014 Ferretti yacht $3.2m
The 100-foot Navigante, whose purchase price is unclear, was seized in connection with the currency swapping scheme.
J
1991 Ferrari F40 $760k
One of several cars (and a racing boat) belonging to David Richard Scott, who owned parking lots on the campuses of the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System. In 2018 he was sentenced to 70 months in prison for bilking the US Department of Veterans Affairs out of $13 million over the course of several years.
2020 $21M
K
Cinda $60k
Thomas Murtha, an attorney, used $2 million he stole from clients, friends and family members for lavish items, including the purchase and care of show horses such as Cinda, an Irish sport horse, according to federal prosecutors. He was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison in 2018.
L
14 bottles of Screaming Eagle wine from various vintages $30k
M
1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card (rated 7 out of 10) $105k
The sale price was a bargain compared with ’52 Mantles in more pristine condition, which have sold for as much as eight figures: In 2022, a card with a 9.5 rating went for $12.6 million.
N
Bliss Bucket by Ed Ruscha $370k
The 2010 piece originally sold for $367,500 at a 2013 Christie’s benefit auction organized with actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s nonprofit to help fund environmental causes. US Department of Justice officials say funds diverted as part of the 1MDB scandal were used for the purchase. (FBI officials interviewed DiCaprio, but he wasn’t charged in connection with the scandal.)
O
2006 widebody houseboat $354k
The good news for the buyer was that the boat is 102 feet long and has four bedrooms, General Electric appliances, seven TVs—and a DVD player! The bad news: There were no smoke detectors, the carbon monoxide detector didn’t work properly, and there weren’t enough fire extinguishers on board, according to the Gaston & Sheehan listing.
2021 $83.7M
P
Round Jackie by Andy Warhol $1.0m Metropolis movie poster $1.1m
The poster for the 1927 film and a Warhol work featuring Jacqueline Kennedy were both seized in the 1MDB scandal.
Q
36-foot commercial fishing vessel Aspiration $13.5k Market Squid Light Boat permit $74k 391.6 Bitcoin $12.6m
These items were seized in connection with a dark web drug-dealing scheme; the unidentified owner, who sold fentanyl patches and opioids, according to court documents, took Bitcoin as payment. The boat and permit, which were purchased in 2018 for a combined $600,000, were used to “conceal and disguise the nature, location, source and ownership and control of the payments” the owner received, according to the documents.
R
2016 Lamborghini Aventador $365k
S
8.3k Ethereum $12.5m
This cache was seized from Alexandre Cazes, a Canadian living in Thailand who founded the dark web’s AlphaBay site. AlphaBay’s trafficked goods included malware, drugs and counterfeit documents, with payments transacted in cryptocurrency including Bitcoin and Ethereum. Royal Thai Police executed a warrant for Cazes’ arrest in July 2017. Bloomberg News reported that month that, according to the Bangkok Post, Thai police said Cazes hanged himself in jail while he was being held pending extradition to the US.
2022 $80.6M
T
Charizard Pokémon card $43k
In the early days of the pandemic, a Georgia man, Vinath Oudomsine, fraudulently obtained $85,000 in Covid-19 relief funds and used $57,789 of that to purchase the card, according to federal prosecutors. He pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and was sentenced to 36 months in prison.
U
Two Boston Whaler Outrage motorboats $815k
These were part of a $26.7 million forfeiture order related to the case of Christopher Chierchio. Chierchio was a co-defendant with Jason Kurland, a Long Island lawyer who represented lottery winners and defrauded them by securing investments in risky businesses that he had a secret ownership stake in, prosecutors said. Chierchio was a middleman in one of the schemes. In June he was sentenced to five years in prison. (Kurland got 13 years.)
V
143.3k Tether $143k
Although the cryptocurrency is pegged one-to-one with the US dollar, the buyer got a small discount.
W
Richard Mille Felipe Massa Black Phantom watch $269k
The most expensive timepiece auctioned in the data we received.
X
680.6 Bitcoin $39.5m
The government couldn’t have timed the crypto market more perfectly. The Bitcoin were sold on Nov. 19, 2021, when the spot price was hovering at about $58,000. As of this Nov. 13, the price was around $36,500.
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