Italian police have dismantled a pan-European forgery network accused of producing and distributing replica artworks by more than 30 artists including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Andy Warhol, and Banksy.
At a press conference on November 11, the Carabinieri art squad and Pisa’s prosecutor’s office announced that 38 individuals across Italy, Spain, France, and Belgium are under investigation for handling stolen goods, forgery, and illegal art sales.
The case began in March last year when Italy’s art police seized 200 works of contemporary art from a Pisan businessman. The investigation, named Operation Cariatide after a forged Modigliani caryatid seized from the group, has resulted in around 2,100 confiscated artworks valued at an estimated €200 million ($213 million).
Investigators initially became suspicious when contemporary artworks were sold at suspiciously low prices on online auction sites. This led them to uncover six forgery workshops—three in Italy and three elsewhere in Europe—housing over 1,000 fake works, 450 counterfeit certificates, and 50 fraudulent stamps.
“[Operation Cariatide] has allowed us to shed light on a transnational system of counterfeiters connected with compliant auction houses,” said Teresa Angela Camelio, Pisa’s lead prosecutor, referring to venues that served as key final links in the forgers’ supply chain. “The operation has also allowed us to identify and block works that could have been placed on the market with prices close to those of the artists’ original works.”
The most forged artist was Banksy, the provocative British graffiti artist. Counterfeiters even staged two exhibitions full of fake Banksy work, one in Mestre, in Veneto, and the other in Cortona in Tuscany.
Stefano Antonelli, a Banksy expert who was present at Cariatide press conference, called it the greatest protection of Banksy’s work. He noted that many of the fakes were stamped Dismaland, a reference to the apocalyptic theme park Banksy created in an English seaside resort in 2015. Some cardboard spray-painted works claimed to be from the ‘90s, but were priced well below their market value. In other instances, Antonelli said, forgers got creative by imaging altogether new Banksy works, such as painting his iconic flower thrower onto a road sign. Forgery has long dogged Banksy and the artist has an official authentication team work, the Pest Control Office.
Other forged artists included Piet Mondrian, Francis Bacon, Wassily Kandisky, Marc Chagall, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, Henry Moore, and Paul Klee.
Many of the works seized in Operation Cariatide are now on display at Piza’s Palazzo Toscanelli, a Renaissance-style palace that houses the State Archives.
Credit: news.artnet.
