"Investigations against a 77-year-old German man and ten suspected accomplices began at the start of the year, with the group suspected of conspiring to commit fraud with art forgeries, the office said. On 15 October, more than 100 officers searched properties in 11 German towns, five Swiss cantons and Liechtenstein, seizing documents, mobile telephones, cloud data and forged works of art."
"Police became aware of the case when the man, who is their main suspect, tried to sell two works presented as original Picasso paintings-one of them a portrait of Dora Maar. "A potential buyer came to us because the negotiations were not what you'd expect for paintings of that quality," Patrick Haggenmüller, the chief inspector leading the investigation, said in an interview with Reuters TV. "They were selling them out of their car boot.""
"These included a copy of Rembrandt's The Sampling Officials of the Amsterdam Drapers' Guild, also known as The Syndics, for which he was asking SFr 120m. The original of this painting hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, but the forger and accomplices didn't let that deter them: according to the Bavarian police statement, they told potential buyers that their version was the original and the one in the Rijksmuseum was a copy."
Police seized forged works falsely attributed to Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Juan Miró, Amadeo Modigliani and Frida Kahlo during coordinated raids in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Investigations began earlier in the year into a 77-year-old German suspect and ten suspected accomplices accused of conspiring to commit art fraud. On 15 October more than 100 officers searched properties in 11 German towns, five Swiss cantons and Liechtenstein, confiscating documents, mobile phones, cloud data and forged artworks. The case surfaced when the main suspect attempted to sell two purported Picassos from a car boot. Forged pieces were offered for prices ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions, including a claimed Rembrandt priced at SFr 120m.
Read at The Art Newspaper - International art news and events
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