Bavarian police officers seized an array of forged works with false attributions to artists including Pablo Picasso, Rembrandt, Juan Miro, Amadeo Modigliani and Frida Kahlo earlier this month. The operation involved coordinated raids on homes and business premises in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, the Bavarian state crime office said.
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.”
Further investigations revealed that the main suspect was also trying to sell about 20 more works. 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.
The other works—including a painting of the Virgin and Child purporting to be by Anthony van Dyck and two ceramic vases for sale as original Picasso works—were offered for prices between €400,000 and €14m.
The suspected accomplices include an 84-year-old Swiss woman and a 74-year-old man from the state of Rhineland-Palatinate who produced certificates of authenticity for the works, the state crime office said. He and the main suspect were apprehended on the day of the raids but released again. Investigations are ongoing.
