Police bust art forgery ring trying to sell fake Picasso, Rembrandt works : NPR
Two counterfeit works of art, allegedly by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, are seen during a presentation at the Bavarian State Criminal Investigation Department in Munich on Friday.
Matthias Balk/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Matthias Balk/AFP via Getty Images
German police say they have dismantled an international art counterfeiting ring that attempted to sell works allegedly by Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Frida Kahlo and others for tens of millions of dollars to unsuspecting collectors.
The scheme was allegedly led by a 77-year-old German from Bavaria with the help of ten accomplices, according to a press release of the Bavarian State Criminal Police.
Patrick Haggenmueller, head of the art investigation unit of the Bavarian State Criminal Police (BLKA), stands next to the fake painting. Mary with Child supposedly by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck.
Matthias Balk/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Matthias Balk/AFP via Getty Images
Investigators say they discovered the fraud when the main suspect tried to sell two supposedly original Picasso works, including a portrait of the Spanish painter’s muse Dora Maar. (A Picasso painting of Maar titled Bust of a woman with a flowered hat sold last week for approximately $37 million, having been kept in a family collection since its purchase in 1944.)
The anonymous ringleader also allegedly tried to sell a copy of a world-famous painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn, known as The trusteesA 17th century portrait members of the Amsterdam drapers’ guild, for around $150 million. But the original of this painting, known in Dutch as The Staalmeestersis in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Police say the fake was likely a 20th-century copy belonging to an 84-year-old Swiss woman, who is now also under investigation by German and Swiss authorities.
Authorities say the main suspect, 77, tried to sell a Rembrandt painting known as The trustees. This work, known in Dutch as The Staalmeestersis part of the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Matthias Balk/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Matthias Balk/AFP via Getty Images
Other counterfeit works allegedly offered for sale by the 77-year-old suspect included ceramic vases by Picasso, Study of a head by Amadeo Modigliani and pieces purportedly by Peter Paul Rubens, Joan Miró and Anthony van Dyck. Purchase prices ranged from $460,000 to more than $16 million.
One of the accomplices in this operation was a 74-year-old man from Rhineland-Palatinate who had produced false expert reports attesting to the authenticity of the forgeries, according to investigators.
A series of coordinated searches carried out by police one morning earlier this month in more than a dozen locations in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein revealed a number of suspected forgeries, which are expected to be analyzed by art experts in the coming weeks.
