Art fraud

Footloose fraudster Anna Sorokin voted off Dancing with the Stars

While she inspired Inventing Anna on Netflix, Sorokin struggled to reinvent herself as a top-tier dancer during her short stint on the reality competition show

Crime news

Former Trump adviser—and Russian state TV commentator—charged with money laundering through art and antiques

Dimitri Simes and his wife Anastasia have been charged with three counts of violating US sanctions, including money laundering through the acquisition of art

From cha-ching to cha-cha: Anna Sorokin shows off bedazzled ankle monitor in Dancing with the Stars debut

The real-life inspiration for ‘Inventing Anna’ says she got permission from ICE authorities to participate in the reality competition

Art crimeanalysis

Who should be able to profit from art criminals’ stories?

Television series linked to convicted fraudsters such as Inigo Philbrick and Anna Delvey raise ethical and legal questions

Booksreview

‘Shamefully duped’: friend of convicted art fraudster Inigo Philbrick spills the beans in new memoir

In the warts-and all publication, Orlando Whitfield discusses his 15-year friendship with Philbrick while offering insights into the world of art dealing

Art fraudster Inigo Philbrick’s glamorous rise and dramatic fall to become television series

A production company working with HBO has optioned a memoir by Philbrick’s former friend and business partner Orlando Whitfield

Crime news

Inigo Philbrick, art dealer who went to prison for fraud, is free

In 2022, Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to an $86m fraud

Orlando Museum of Art drops lawsuit against owners of allegedly fake Basquiats

The museum, which is operating at a significant deficit amid mounting crisis management fees, will focus its legal efforts on its former director

The Gray Market: Art fraud has hijacked the conversation again, but calls for stronger regulation miss the bigger picture

Is regulation a wonder drug for curing the art market of its chronic fraud problem? Our columnist explains why that thinking is a myth

Ex-dealer Robert Newland sentenced to nearly two years in prison for role in Inigo Philbrick’s art frauds

"He did his job, but his job turned out to be assisting a criminal fraud," a New York district court judge said

Detroit-area photography dealer pleads guilty to $1.5m art fraud scheme

Wendy Halsted Beard was arrested last year after an FBI investigation

Rogues’ gallery? Three reasons why the art market is vulnerable to wrongdoing

Lavish lifestyles, misplaced confidence and the wish to keep up with billionaire clients can all wreak financial havoc

Palm Beach art dealer sentenced to over two years in prison for blue-chip art fraud scheme

Victims spent “tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars” on counterfeit art sold by the dealer, according to the US Department of Justice

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

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

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

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

Art marketcomment

Charm, pedigree, contacts: how to dupe the art market

Court documents from the ongoing Inigo Philbrick fraud saga reveal that the secretive art market and the sheer attractiveness of its lifestyle will always suck the punters in

British art dealer Robert Newland pleads guilty to conspiring with Inigo Philbrick to defraud collectors and financiers

Newland was arrested in the UK in February and extradited to the United States in September, where he admitted his role in the $86m scheme for which Inigo Philbrick was sentenced to seven years in prison

Dealer Inigo Philbrick sentenced to seven years in prison

Philbrick pleaded guilty to an $86m fraud in November in one of the art world's highest-profile criminal lawsuits in decades

Is the art market corrupt to the core? Balderdash.

An attorney in the Inigo Philbrick fraud case described the trade as completely rotten, I disagree

Art marketanalysis

A swindler’s playground: why is the art market so appealing to fraudsters?

Indian antiquities dealer Monson Mavunkal is currently in custody following a string of fraud allegations, including trying to sell a walking stick he said belonged to Moses. But he is not the first con artist to target the art world

Podcastspodcast

Fraud: the case of Inigo Philbrick

Plus, Warhol’s Catholicism and Moscow’s new museums

Hosted by Ben Luke. with guest speaker Georgina Adam. Produced by Julia Michalska, Aimee Dawson and David Clack. With Henrietta Bentall
Sponsored byChristie's

Former dealer Angela Gulbenkian is sentenced to three and a half years for defrauding art clients

Charges involved sale of a £1.1m Yayoi Kusama pumpkin sculpture that was never delivered and the theft of £50,000 that a friend had given her to invest