Police arrest criminal network that forges famous paintings – DW – November 11, 2024

Police in Italy have seized more than 2,100 counterfeit works of art attributed to dozens of greats including Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol and Banksy.

Investigators said Monday that the artworks had a potential market value of 200 million euros ($215 million).

Pisa’s chief prosecutor, Teresa Angela Camelio, said experts from the Banksy archives had supported the investigation and considered it “the greatest act to protect Banksy’s work.”

Other artists whose works were allegedly counterfeited include Salvador Dali, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Claude Monet, Marc Chagall, Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Gustav Klimt, Wassily Kandinsky, Francis Bacon and many more.

Police suspect network of counterfeit workshops

Around 38 people were examined in an investigation that spanned Italy, Spain, France and Belgium.

They were suspected of conspiring to handle stolen goods, counterfeiting and illegally selling works of art, the Pisa prosecutor’s office and the Carabinieri’s art department said in a joint statement.

Italian police have uncovered two art forgery workshops in Tuscany and one in Venice. European investigations then identified three additional workshops abroad.

The suspects were accused of producing the fake artworks in their own workshops before contacting Italian auction houses to sell the pieces.

To bolster their credibility, the network of suspected counterfeiters even organized entire exhibitions at prestigious locations and published art catalogs.

zc/rmt (Reuters, EFE)