He was the president of Natural Le Coultre, an international company specialising in the transportation, storage, scientific analysis, and conservation of works of art, luxurious goods and other collectables.

[1] In December 2023, the Geneva Public Prosecutor's Office closed the criminal investigation against Bouvier, citing that it did not find "any evidence allowing sufficient suspicion to be raised against the defendants.

[4] In September 2017, it emerged that Bouvier was under criminal investigation by Swiss authorities amid allegations that he may have evaded more than 100 million euros in taxes related to his cross-border art dealings.

[6] In 1989, Jean-Jacques and Yves Bouvier formed Fine Art Transports Natural Le Coultre SA in Geneva, which provided moving and furniture storage services to the local companies.

Under Bouvier's control, Natural Le Coultre owned 5 per cent of the Geneva freeport,[12] but the company was sold to André Chenue, a Parisian shipping firm, in 2017 for an undisclosed amount.

[13][14] In 2017, in line with the investigation into Bouvier's potential tax-evasion, Federal Tax Administration (FTA) officials temporarily sequestered one of Natural Le Coultre's buildings in Geneva, worth 4.5 million Swiss francs.

[21] A European Commission report also concluded that these facilities "could be abused for trade of counterfeited goods, money laundering and other crime if no sufficient checks are carried out to identify the owners of companies using them.

"[22] Furthermore, a 2016 UNESCO report detailed the possibility that freeports can be used by art dealers to trade stolen, looted or illegally excavated objects, even many years later.

[26] According to media reports, the freeport has been linked to the trafficking of looted artifacts from Syria, and is regarded as a risk for money-laundering and tax-evasion operations by the European Union.

[33] German MEP Wolf Klinz in 2019 demanded the freeport be closed for its alleged role in facilitating money laundering and tax evasion.

[44] In 2015, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev accused Yves Bouvier of defrauding him out of nearly $1 billion via the sale of artwork at inflated prices while he was employed as a consultant and was receiving a commission of 2 per cent on the value of each purchase.

[46][47][48] Bouvier has denied all claims, stating that he presented himself as the seller of the artwork, rather than an adviser and that the 2 percent fee related to the transportation, storage and certification service that he provided.

[51] When the painting arrived at the premises of Natural Le Coultre, located in the Geneva freeport, the canvas did not have a certificate of authenticity guaranteeing that the artwork was an original.

Bouvier also called for an investigation into HSBC’s provision of a letter to Monaco police that falsely stated that he and a co-defendant in a money laundering case, Tania Rappo, shared an account at the bank.

Dubbed "Monacogate" by the press,[65] the scandal unfolded with the disclosure of text messages from Rybolovlev's lawyer Tania Bersheda, which showed efforts to sway the legal proceedings and orchestrate the arrest of Bouvier in 2015.

[66] The text messages revealed that days before the arrest of Bouvier, Rybolovlev had hosted Narmino and his family and HSBC Monaco managing director Gérard Cohen at his residence in Gstaad, Switzerland.

"[68] In addition, Rybolovlev's lawyer Tetiana Bersheda recorded a private conversation at the oligarch's house a few days before the arrest of Bouvier and Rappo.

[73][74][75] The High Court subsequently ordered the Russian to deposit $100 million to guarantee the amount of damages sustained by Bouvier and his companies due to the injunction.

[74] High Court recorder Jason Pow Wing-nin SC ordered the injunction against art dealer Bouvier and his Hong Kong company Mei Invest Limited to be lifted.

[78] In March 2016, following the lead of European authorities, US Federal prosecutors opened an investigation into Bouvier, whom they described as "one of the art world’s consummate insiders.

[81] In February 2018, a federal prosecutor in Geneva opened a criminal investigation into Yves Bouvier, accusing him of fraud to the detriment of Dmitry Rybolovlev.

[82] In December 2023, the Geneva Public Prosecutor's Office closed the criminal investigation against Bouvier, citing that it did not find "any evidence allowing sufficient suspicion to be raised against the defendants.

"[95] Bouvier stated that his "name is now cleared", adding that the Geneva Prosecutor's decision to dismiss the case marked the "end of a nine-year nightmare.

[98][99] According to New York court papers from 2013, Bouvier was accused of having conspired "to disguise the true ownership" of pieces of art to defraud the Shefner estate.

[100] In a separate incident, Bouvier's purported connections to Galerie Jacques de la Béraudière and his ownership of an off-shore entity called Diva Fine Arts led him to be connected to the case of Wolfgang Beltracchi, a German forger convicted in 2011 of defrauding a number of collectors, including Daniel Filipacchi, of millions of dollars.

[103] In 30 March 2012, the Beijing office of one of Bouvier's subsidiary firms, art transporter IFAS, was raided by local tax authorities, leading to the arrest of several employees, including the general manager Nils Jennrich.

The court's decision highlighted suspicions about Bouvier's methods, which allegedly included misleading valuations and complex intermediary arrangements to obscure the true ownership and inflate the prices of artworks.

[109] Bouvier and an associate, Marc Francelet, were also allegedly involved in helping former president of Angola, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, funnel Angolan state funds out of the country.

[124] According to the French magazine Le Point, Yves Bouvier had allegedly been the patron of Zahia Dehar, a model and designer who had previously worked as a call girl.