[Shoebox]

For those inquiring about why no victim is listed in the document for many of the entries. I found this in the document which seems to explain the reasoning.

"It is my understanding that for the remaining auctions in which the Government calculated a loss but did not identify a “victim,” the identified shill bidder either placed the
winning bid or the “shill bid(s)” did not immediately precede the winning bid. As such, it is my opinion the actual loss on these auctions is $0 because the “shill bid(s)” did not have a direct financial impact on the winning bid."

So essentially if a shill bid was used to bump the lot from $500 to $600 and then legitimate bids take the item up to $1000. The government is listing a "loss" of $100 on the item but not identifying a victim because the 2nd high bid is judged to be legitimate. Based on that then it would seem that most of the shill bids were placed to push items up to a hidden reserve early on in the bidding rather than attempting to max out the final sale price with late shill bids. Not defending or attempting to excuse any of this behavior, but I thought that context was important to note. I never bid or consigned in a Maestro auction so not directly affected by this but it is very discouraging and makes me question a lot.