The Empty Vault is an open-source (OSINT) investigation into the Geneva Freeport and the documentary record behind the Rybolovlev–Bouvier affair. It tests the standard freeport narrative against primary sources: court records from five jurisdictions (Geneva cantonal and administrative courts, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, SDNY, and mutual legal assistance proceedings), the 2014 Swiss federal audit CDF-12490 and its 2019 follow-up, the freeport operator's own IFRS financial statements, Geneva parliamentary records, and Swiss commercial registries. Key findings: the widely cited "100 billion" valuation of the freeport's contents has no primary source and is traceable primary source that itself contradicts the figure; the freeport is a heavily indebted 137-year-old state-controlled company whose majority shareholder — the Canton of Geneva — simultaneously acts as its creditor, landlord, tax authority and regulator; and the opacity at the center of the Bouvier affair was not a designed service but a documented vacuum of responsibility between operator, tenant and beneficial owner. The deposit contains the full text of the investigation in Russian (original) and English, a machine-readable source manifest (sources. csv, 24 sources with locators, dates, supported claims and access status), and archival snapshots of volatile sources — including court decisions unavailable through search engines and a press article amended post-publication at a lawyer's request. Part of the Stolen Context series on art crime and the financial infrastructure enabling it. License: CC-BY 4. 0
riaria (Mon,) studied this question.