Art crime

Former Art Institute of Chicago employee pleads guilty to embezzling $2m from the museum

Michael Maurello may face up to 20 years in prison for his financial misdeeds at the museum

Former museum aide sentenced for stealing Indigenous artefacts, including a grizzly bear necklace

Preston Jay Spotted Eagle has been sentenced to five years probation on charges of stealing government property from his former employer, the Museum of the Plains Indian on the Blackfoot reservation in Montana

Auctioneer admits he helped create fake Basquiats seized by FBI in museum raid

Michael Barzman, who formerly ran an auction company that bought and resold the contents of storage lockers, said in plea agreement that he and another man made and sold 20 to 30 fake Basquiats

FBI launches app to help identify stolen art

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has made its Nation Stolen Art File, most commonly used by law enforcement, available on mobile to the public

Report identifies art market as a target for organised crime

Internal crime agency urges vigilance, and greater efforts on monitoring and enforcement, but industry figures say study lacks focus and hard evidence of key vulnerabilities.

Man fingered in Philadelphia theft of thumb from terracotta warrior will plead guilty

A man whose drunken antics at a 2017 ugly sweater party at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia got him in hot water with the FBI, is expected to take a plea bargain in order to avoid jail time

Hong Kong heiress sues gallery over alleged £500,000 Banksy fraud

Karen Lo says the dealer Pearl Lam never followed through with her purchase of a well-known painting by the secretive British artist

Mysterious Jackson Pollock painting—with hidden message to Lauren Bacall—found in Bulgaria

The painting, which reportedly features a birthday message to the American actress on its back, was seized during a smuggling raid, officials say

More than 1,000 objects in the Met’s collection linked to alleged traffickers and looters, investigation finds

A new report claims New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has many items in its collection with major provenance issues

Inside the 'biggest art fraud in history': what the alleged mass forgery tells us about the market for First Nations art in Canada

Plus worryingly low artists’ pay in the UK and an Ugly Duchess

Hosted by Ben Luke. With guest speaker Benjamin Sutton. Produced by David Clack and Aimee Dawson
Sponsored byChristie's

Miami art dealer sentenced to more than four years in prison for smuggling ivory sculptures

Eduardo Ulises Martinez was convicted of illegally transporting ivory and obstruction of justice

Canadian police uncover 'biggest art fraud in world history'

Eight suspects are arrested and more than 1,000 works seized following investigation into forgeries of paintings by the Ojibwe artist Norval Morrisseau

Palm Beach art dealer pleads guilty to selling counterfeit blue-chip art

Daniel Elie Bouaziz was accused of selling fake works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat

Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist says he was conned in dealer’s $1.6m art fraud scheme

Detroit-area gallery owner Wendy Halsted Beard was arrested last year on mail and wire fraud charges following an FBI investigation

Appeals court upholds antiquities trafficking charges against former Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez and curator Jean-François Charnier

The appellate court judges’ decision came as a surprise, as the general prosecutor had asked for the charges—which relate to the acquisition of Egyptian antiquities by the Louvre Abu Dhabi—to be dropped

Authorities in New York return 14 looted artefacts valued at $2.5m to Italy, including a black-figure hydria by the renowned Priam Painter

The repatriated artefacts were looted by an international network of “high-profile antiquities traffickers and smugglers, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office

Crime news

Ukrainian art dealer found guilty of stealing £1.3m Paul Signac from French museum

Vadym Huzhva handed a five-year sentence for 2018 theft and for stealing four other paintings in France, including a Renoir

Antiquities dealer Ali Aboutaam given 18-month suspended sentence by Geneva court

Decision brings the six-year investigation into the provenance of 15,000 antiquities from Phoenix Ancient Art to an end, with only a handful found to lack proper documentation

Former manager at the Art Institute of Chicago accused of stealing $2m from the museum

The former employee faces four federal charges over an alleged fraud scheme that went on for 13 years

Police recover paintings by Elaine de Kooning and others stolen in Colorado art heist

Paintings worth $400,000 that were stolen from a storage truck on 14 December 2022 have been located in a Colorado hotel room

Art crime specialist honoured by New Zealand for services to field

Penelope Jackson is the author of a book that considers how illicit activity differs when undertaken by women

Crime news

Moscow-based architect, who built ‘Putin’s Palace’, refuses to return to Italy to face trial

Italian Lanfranco Cirillo—whose 150-strong art collection was seized last year—will be tried in absentia by an Italian court next month for tax and money laundering crimes

More than $400,000 of art stolen from a padlocked truck in Boulder, Colorado

Police are investigating the theft of five paintings from a vehicle in a hotel car park

Italian police widen fraud investigation after seizing Rubens painting from Genoa exhibition

The Carabinieri accuse four people of downgrading and illegally exporting the Old Master work, which has now been returned to the show in the Palazzo Ducale

Collector cracks art heist cold case with a pillowcase and reverse Google image search

Decades after it was stolen from the Worcester Art Museum, collector Clifford Schorer spotted a missing Dutch Golden Age painting printed on a throw pillow

Crime news

Following his arrest in Italy, Old Master forgery suspect Giuliano Ruffini is turned over to French authorities

After seven years of investigations, Ruffini has been handed over to French authorities, likely setting the stage for a trial in Paris

Crime news

Police recover bulk of objects stolen in audacious £100m art heist from Dresden museum

Announcement was made during the trial of six men which began in January and is due to resume this week

Paris gallerists—found guilty of selling Picasso works stolen by handyman—receive suspended jail sentences

Belle et Belle gallery has now been dissolved, closing the chapter on a decade-long criminal investigation

Suspected Old Master forger Giuliano Ruffini is arrested in Italy after turning himself in

The 77-year-old, wanted by French police for "fraud, money laundering and forgery of works of art", was released after ten days in custody

Crime news

Suspected Old Master forger Giuliano Ruffini—wanted by French police—cannot be found

The French dealer, who is under investigation for selling a series of allegedly forged paintings, has had a warrant out for his arrest since 2019