A major European criminal network forging and selling artworks by some of the biggest names in modern art including works attributed to Banksy, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso has been broken up by police in Italy. Six forgery workshops were uncovered – two in Tuscany, one in Venice as well as in Spain and in Belgium – and 38 people were arrested.
Those arrested face charges of conspiracy to handle stolen goods, forgery and illegal sale of artworks, the Carabinieri cultural squad and the Pisa prosecutors’ office said in a joint statement on Monday. Authorities were tipped off in 2023 after they seized about 200 fake pieces from the collection of a businessman in Pisa, including a copy of a drawing by Italian painter Amedeo Modigliani. Other artists impersonated included Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Salvador Dali, Henry Moore, Gustav Klimt, Joan Mirò, Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon and Piet Mondrian. More than 2,100 forged artworks were recovered with a potential sale value of about €200 million.
