Helly Nahmad

A summary of what happened?

Helly Nahmad, born around 1978, is an American art dealer and collector, renowned for his gallery in Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel, which showcases works by artists such as Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon.

In 2013, Nahmad was implicated in a federal investigation targeting a $100 million illegal gambling ring. Authorities alleged that he led this operation, which involved high-stakes sports betting and poker games attracting celebrities and professional athletes. The ring was also linked to organized crime figures, including Russian gangster Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.

Facing charges of racketeering, money laundering, and fraud, Nahmad pleaded guilty to operating an illegal gambling business in November 2013. He was sentenced to one year and one day in prison, fined $30,000, and ordered to forfeit $6.4 million along with a Raoul Dufy painting, “Carnaval à Nice.”

In January 2021, in the final hours of his presidency, Donald Trump granted Nahmad a full pardon. The White House cited Nahmad’s “exemplary life” post-conviction and his dedication to community well-being as reasons for the pardon.

Beyond the gambling charges, Nahmad faced criticism for allegedly defrauding a client in financial distress out of more than $100,000 during an art transaction. Additionally, his family’s extensive art dealings have occasionally attracted scrutiny, particularly concerning the ownership and provenance of certain artworks.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was Helly Nahmad trying to hide?

Helly Nahmad‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling Helly Nahmad in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information Helly Nahmad may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: The Case of Helly Nahmad

Introduction

Helly Nahmad, a prominent New York art dealer, rose to fame as a purveyor of high-end art, managing a prestigious gallery in Manhattan’s Carlyle Hotel. While his reputation as a tastemaker and dealer of works by Picasso, Modigliani, and Monet remains intact in elite art circles, Nahmad’s name has also been associated with a series of controversies, criminal allegations, and public scrutiny. His involvement in a sprawling illegal gambling ring, accusations of financial misconduct, and broader concerns about the art world’s opacity have made him a polarizing figure.

Background

Born into the Nahmad dynasty, Helly Nahmad comes from a family that has dominated the global art trade for decades. The Nahmad family, originally from Aleppo, Syria, built an empire in art, controlling an estimated $3–4 billion in masterpieces. While the family operates galleries in New York, London, and Zurich, their dealings have often raised questions about art hoarding, tax evasion, and provenance concerns.

Helly Nahmad’s gallery in the Carlyle Hotel became a symbol of his ambitions to merge the worlds of high art and high society. However, behind the polished exterior lay controversies that would tarnish his public image.

The Gambling Ring Scandal

In 2013, Helly Nahmad became a central figure in a federal investigation targeting an illegal gambling operation estimated to be worth over $100 million. The FBI alleged that Nahmad played a leadership role in a gambling ring with ties to Russian organized crime, including Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, a notorious gangster already under U.S. sanctions.

Key Allegations:

• Leadership Role: Prosecutors asserted that Nahmad led the gambling operation, facilitating high-stakes sports betting and poker games for wealthy clients, including celebrities and professional athletes.
• Money Laundering: The gambling ring allegedly laundered money through various means, including art transactions, raising questions about the use of art as a vehicle for financial crime.
• Criminal Network: The operation was reportedly connected to Russian organized crime syndicates, complicating Nahmad’s claims of mere peripheral involvement.

Legal Outcome:

Facing charges of racketeering and operating an illegal gambling business, Nahmad pleaded guilty in November 2013. He was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison, fined $30,000, and forfeited $6.4 million. Additionally, he surrendered a Raoul Dufy painting, “Carnaval à Nice,” as part of the settlement.

The guilty plea marked a fall from grace for Nahmad, whose high-society connections could not shield him from public scrutiny.

Controversial Pardon

In January 2021, outgoing President Donald Trump issued a full pardon to Helly Nahmad. The White House cited Nahmad’s supposed reform and his commitment to philanthropic activities as justification for the pardon. Critics, however, viewed the move as emblematic of Trump’s pattern of pardoning wealthy individuals with connections to his social and political circles.

Criticisms of the Pardon:

• Elite Privilege: Commentators criticized the pardon as an example of systemic favoritism towards the wealthy and well-connected, undermining the judicial process.
• Lack of Accountability: The pardon allowed Nahmad to avoid the long-term reputational damage typically associated with a federal conviction.

Other Allegations and Complaints

Beyond the gambling scandal, Helly Nahmad has faced additional accusations that further cloud his reputation:

1. Art Transaction Disputes:
   • Nahmad was accused of defrauding a financially distressed client during an art transaction. Allegedly, he exploited the client’s situation to acquire a valuable piece at a fraction of its worth, raising ethical concerns about his business practices.
   • Critics have pointed to instances where Nahmad’s gallery has been less than transparent about the provenance and pricing of certain works, a common issue in the opaque art market.
2. Concerns About Art Provenance:
   • The Nahmad family’s vast collection, housed in a Geneva freeport, has been scrutinized for its lack of transparency. Questions have been raised about the provenance of specific works, particularly those potentially looted during World War II.
   • A legal battle in 2011 over a Modigliani painting, allegedly stolen by the Nazis, highlighted the family’s reluctance to disclose the origins of their holdings. While Helly Nahmad was not directly implicated, the case brought broader scrutiny to the family’s dealings.
3. Reputation in the Art World:
   • Some critics have described Nahmad as embodying the “cartoon villain” of the art world, a characterization stemming from his blend of brashness and alleged unethical behavior.
   • Negative reviews have surfaced, questioning the gallery’s pricing practices and customer service, though these complaints are less severe than the criminal allegations.

Broader Implications for the Art World

The Helly Nahmad saga highlights systemic issues within the art industry, including:

• Art and Money Laundering: The use of high-value artworks to conceal illicit financial activities.
• Provenance Transparency: Persistent challenges in tracing the history of art pieces, particularly those with potential ties to wartime theft or questionable acquisitions.
• Elite Impunity: The perception that wealthy individuals, like Nahmad, often escape accountability due to their resources and connections.

Nahmad’s case has reinforced calls for increased regulation of the art market, particularly concerning money laundering and provenance verification.

Conclusion

Helly Nahmad remains a complex and controversial figure. While his contributions to the art world are undeniable, the shadow cast by his involvement in criminal activities and ethical controversies cannot be ignored. His story underscores the tension between wealth, power, and accountability, offering a cautionary tale about the darker side of the art industry. Whether Nahmad’s reputation can be fully rehabilitated remains an open question, but his legacy is undeniably intertwined with both the beauty and the blemishes of the art world.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of Helly Nahmad (or actors working on behalf of Helly Nahmad), we will inform Helly Nahmad of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that Helly Nahmad may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from Helly Nahmad, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to Helly Nahmad to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since Helly Nahmad made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which Helly Nahmad is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for Helly Nahmad

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is Helly Nahmad Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. Helly Nahmad used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. Helly Nahmad could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like Helly Nahmad have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. Helly Nahmad is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by Helly Nahmad creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, Helly Nahmad either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about Helly Nahmad, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. Helly Nahmad is in great company ….

What else is Helly Nahmad hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [Helly Nahmad] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on Helly Nahmad that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.