The police of Italy has seized more than 2,100 counterfeit works of art, attributed to authors such as Warhol, Banksy, Picasso either Van Gogh and with a value greater than 200 million euros. Likewise, the authorities are investigating a transnational network of counterfeiters and auction houses that operated in Spain, France, Italy and Belgium.
The seizures have been carried out in Italy, Spain and Belgium and 38 suspects are investigated of a possible criminal network. In this sense, they are related to crimes associated with the reception, falsification and marketing of these artistic goods, the Carabineros (militarized police) reported this Monday in a statement.
Those involved allegedly produced the works in their own workshops and then They contacted Italian auction houses for the subsequent sale of the pieces, have added about the network of counterfeiters. This organization even organized entire exhibitions with fake works.
The investigation It started in March 2023 after the search of a businessman from Pisa (north) from whom some 200 counterfeit works of art were seized. Among them, a painting titled Caryatid by Amadeo Modigliani, which gives name to the operation initiated by the Prosecutor’s Office of that town and delegated to the Nucleus of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Rome.
After that first seizure, the authorities began monitoring the e-commerce platforms of the main auction houses to determine if there were more counterfeit works for sale and identify those responsible for providing said pieces. At that time, they verified that the market contained many other works lacking originality in different Italian locations.
From there, they managed to identify three counterfeiters in the regions of Tuscany and Veneto (north) and located three painting workshops where the counterfeit works were produced in Lucca, Pistoia and Venice, also in the north.
The recovered works were forgeries attributed to internationally renowned authors such as Modigliani, Andy Warhol, Banksy, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Arman, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Henry Moore, Haussmann, Tapies, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Twombly, Wilfredo Lam, Marc Chagall, Monet, De Chirico , Giacometti, Aubertin, Mituraj, Afro, Boccioni, Paul Klee, Van Gogh, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Vasarely, Pollock, Haring, Hopper, Death NYC, Renato Guttuso and Salvador Dalí.
Given the magnitude of the investigation, the Pisa prosecutor’s office, coordinated with Eurojust, issued three European investigation orders against six people in Spain, France and Belgium. The investigations carried out in Europe led to the location of three additional forgery laboratories and the subsequent seizure of 1,000 counterfeit works of art, along with more than 450 certificates of authenticity and 50 stamps, all forged.
The illicit activity of those investigated focused mainly on the works of artists Andy Warhol and Banksy, and they even managed to organize exhibitions with falsified works in official spaces of prestigious institutions. Specifically, they sold three works by the artists Vasilij Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian, whose value at international auctions amounts to several million euros. They were sold at an auction house in Pisa for about 4,000 euros each.
The experts from the Pisa Prosecutor’s Office have certified the lack of originality of the seized pieces and have estimated around 200 million euros in economic damage that they could have caused if they had been sold. According to authorities, preliminary investigations remain open.
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